Indianapolis, Ind. (11 August 2023) – Making a second trip back to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course this season, Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) continued it’s strong run at the 2.439-mile road course during qualifying on Friday.
Friday’s qualifying session for the Gallagher Grand Prix saw Helio Castroneves (No. 06 AutoNation / Cleveland-Cliffs Honda) and Linus Lundqvist (No. 60 AutoNation / SiriusXM Honda) combine to post MSR’s best two-car road course qualifying of the 2023 NTT INDYCAR SERIES campaign.
Just a few hours after MSR announced Castroneves joining the team’s ownership group as a minority partner and continue his Drive for 5 with an Indianapolis 500 only entry in 2024 with MSR, Castroneves went out and led his squad, transferring to the Fast 12.
The four-time Indianapolis 500 champion posted a best time of 1:10.3196-seconds in first round of qualifying to finish fourth in the session and punch his ticket for the 12-car second outing. The Brazilian was in the top four in the 10-minute Fast 12 at the halfway point before settling for a season-best 12th with a time of 1:10.5027-seconds.
Competing in his second weekend as a stand-in for the injured Simon Pagenaud, Lundqvist narrowly missed advancing into the Fast 12 and will start on the inside of the seventh row for Sunday’s race. Lundqvist started an impressive 11th in the previous INDYCAR round in Nashville for MSR and will look to continue that pace on Saturday.
Although showing pace in qualifying, the No. 06 Honda of Castroneves will receive a six-spot grid penalty for tomorrow’s race for a fifth unapproved engine change following the Nashville weekend.
The Gallagher Grand Prix gets underway at 2:00pm ET on Saturday August 12th with live broadcast coverage on USA Network and Peacock. SiriusXM will also host live IndyCar Radio coverage on XM Ch. 160.
Meyer Shank Racing Driver Quotes:
Helio Castroneves:
“I think I overcooked the tires on my first flying lap and then when I went out on the second lap, the rears weren’t as planted as I needed them to be. I don’t know that we had enough for pole, but we may have been able to get into the Fast Six with the car we had today. Overall I feel like we have a very strong chance in the race tomorrow. Unfortunately we have the six place grid penalty for the engine change, but we will work our way back up in the race tomorrow.”
Linus Lundqvist:
“Very close qualifying session here at Indy. First of all, I am very happy to be back for my second-ever INDYCAR weekend. There are still plenty of new things for me to learn. The package that we had roll off the trucks was competitive and I think we had it in ourselves to move on to the Fast 12 and maybe even the Fast Six. Unfortunately, we couldn’t put it all together and that’s a little on me, but we’ll tune that for tomorrow. We’ll see what the weather does, but I think we’ll have a fast race car tomorrow.”
