LEXINGTON, Ohio — Alex Palou hopped out of his car to hug members of his crew. Amidst a dream season, he’ll lead the field to green, Sunday, at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
The driver of the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda and current NTT IndyCar Series points leader won the pole for the Honda Indy 200 with a time of 1:05.0215 and a speed of 125.017 mph.
“Yeah, it was great,” he said. “Really fast car since practice one.
“Yeah, then qualifying was interesting. We had a ton of speed in Q1. Then Q2 we struggled a little bit with the balance and also speed-wise. We’re still in and we’re still like P3 or P4 but we were still two tenths off, so we wanted to go aggressive. We went on a brand new set of softs for Fast Six instead of keeping it for the race, like I think three guys did it, to try and get that pole, and it worked out.”
It’s his ninth career pole in 90 career starts.
Christian Lundgaard lines up outside on the front row after clocking in at 1:05.2126 and 124.651 mph.
“Yeah, pretty straightforward I would say,” he said. “Really wasn’t the most entertaining. I think we were one of the few cars that decided to run a new set of primes in Q1 and Q2 as a bank lap. We knew we were going to be on the alts anyway, so we were in debate if we were going to use the third set or not. We ended up doing that in the Fast Six.
“Yeah, the worst that could happen was we started sixth, so at least we’re in a good spot to fight for it tomorrow.”
Kyffin Simpson starts third with a time of 1:05.7555 and a speed of 123.622. Nolan Siegel starts fourth with a lap of 1:05.9262 and 123.302 mph. Colton Herta starts fifth after clocking in at 1:06.1218 and 122.937 mph. Louis Foster, fresh off his first career pole at Road America, rounds out the Firestone Fast Six with a lap of 1:06.2398 and 122.718 mph.
Kyle Kirkwood, Palou’s current championship rival and fastest in first practice, failed to advance out of the second round and starts seventh. Pato O’Ward, third in points, starts 15th.
