INDIANAPOLIS (Friday, May 12, 2023) – Christian Lundgaard capped a resurgent Friday for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, winning his first career NTT P1 Award in qualifying for the GMR Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

Lundgaard turned a best lap of 1 minute, 9.3321 seconds in the No. 45 Hy-Vee Honda to become the first Danish driver to win an INDYCAR SERIES pole. He edged Felix Rosenqvist by 27 ten-thousandths of a second, as Rosenqvist will start second after a best lap of 1:09.3348 in the No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. It was the closest gap ever between the top two drivers in the Firestone Fast Six format.

“This 45 Hy-Vee Honda has just been fast all day,” Lundgaard said. “I was hoping for this, but I wasn’t quite expecting it, so it’s awesome to be here right now.”

Lundgaard’s previous best career qualifying performance was third as a rookie last season on the streets of Nashville. His best qualifying spot through the first four races of the season was sixth in late April at Barber Motorsports Park.

This was the first pole for Rahal Letterman Lanigan since Takuma Sato took the top spot in August 2020 on the World Wide Technology Raceway oval.

Lundgaard led all three RLL drivers in the top eight, as Jack Harvey will start fourth (1:09.4220) in the No. 30 Kustom Entertainment Honda and Graham Rahal eighth (1:09.4711) in the No. 15 Fifth Third Bank Honda.

It was a sudden and significant rebound for the team, as Lundgaard entered this race 12th, Rahal 16th and Harvey 23rd in the championship standings. The team’s best finish this season is sixth, by Lundgaard last month at Barber and by Rahal in March at the season opener at St. Petersburg.

“Now we have a shot at it (victory),” Lundgaard said. “We’re leading the field to green, so that’s where we want to be. So, we’ve just got to stay there for the rest of the race.

“Every time we come here to IMS, at least this way (road course), we’ve been quick. So, coming into this year, I was confident. The last time I drove on this track (last July), I finished second. I was second in both practice sessions this morning, so I wanted to up it one, and I did.”

Live coverage of the 85-lap race starts at 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday on NBC, Peacock and the INDYCAR Radio Network.

Swedish driver Rosenqvist fell just short of earning his second NTT P1 Award of the season and first this year on a road course. But tight competition was the story of the day, as the margin of .2979 of a second between the top six was the fourth smallest in the history of the Firestone Fast Six format.

“It just came down to nailing a lap at the end,” Rosenqvist said. “I made a mistake, just a little wobble there. I just went for it – all or nothing. Big congrats to Christian. Scandinavian front row – that’s always cool.”

2021 series champion Alex Palou will start third after a best lap of 1:09.3780 in the No. 10 The American Legion Honda, with Harvey next to him on Row 2.

Pato O’Ward qualified fifth at 1:09.5422 in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. Long Beach winner Kyle Kirkwood rounded out the Firestone Fast Six at 1:09.6292 in the No. 27 AutoNation Honda.

Championship leader Marcus Ericsson will start seventh, just missing the Firestone Fast Six in Round 2 with his best lap of 1:09.4419 in the No. 8 Huski Chocolate Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.

While the rocket ride toward the top by RLL captured attention, another big story was the struggles of many of this season’s race winners and title contenders and past winners of this race and past season champions.

Two-time series champion Josef Newgarden (starting 13th), 2022 GMR Grand Prix winner Colton Herta (starting 14th), 2023 Barber winner Scott McLaughlin (starting 16th), and Andretti Autosport’s top championship contender this season, Romain Grosjean (starting 18th), all were eliminated in the first round of qualifying.

Reigning series champion Will Power made it through to the second round but was eliminated in that session. He will start 12th in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet.

CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
GMR GRAND PRIX
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING REPORT
MAY 12, 2023

FELIX ROSENQVIST PUTS CHEVROLET ON FRONT ROW FOR THE GMR GRAND PRIX

• Arrow McLaren INDYCAR’s Felix Rosenqvist led Team Chevy drivers, qualifying second and starting from the front row for Sunday’s GMR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
• Rosenqvist’s teammate Pato O’Ward joined him in the Firestone Fast Six.
• Rosenqvist and Team Penske’s Will Power advanced from Round 1, Group 1 in GMR Grand Prix Qualifying.
• O’Ward and Alexander Rossi advanced from Round 1, Group 2 in GMR Grand Prix Qualifying.
• O’Ward led the combined practice results, with his fastest lap time of 01:09.4981 at 126.340 mph in Practice 1.
• O’Ward led second practice for Team Chevy, with his fastest lap of 01:10.2604 to finish third on the leaderboard. Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden (sixth), Scott McLaughlin (seventh), and Power (eighth) followed, rounding out the top-10.
• O’Ward led the first practice session with his quickest lap of 01:09.4981, with McLaughlin next for Team Chevy in fourth. Rosenqvist (sixth), Power (ninth), and Rinus VeeKay (tenth) rounded out the top-10 for the Bowtie brand in the first session of Friday.

TEAM CHEVY TOP-10 QUALIFYING RESULT:
POS. DRIVER
2nd Felix Rosenqvist
5th Pato O’Ward
10th Alexander Rossi

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING:

Josef Newgarden, No. 2 Chevrolet at Team Penske:

“I had two laps of fuel which is pretty much what everyone’s going to do. I did an okay first lap. I was going for it. But you know at this point you can’t go through there with the yellow (from Benjamin Pedersen spin) and go quicker otherwise I’m was going to get a penalty so I backed off a little bit there. Then I decided to it because I thought that I could really go quicker on the whole lap. But, man I lost so much at the start of it that seemed irrelevant at that point. So it was unfortunate because that was the lap to really put it together. I would say it was bad timing again, you know, what are we going to do? I mean, it’s not anybody’s fault outside of the timing.

“I’m not going to go back and like be mad at anybody or even myself, it’s just bad timing. You can’t predict that stuff but I thought the car was good. Timing is going be more important tomorrow. Thanks to Snap On and Team Chevy, we will just go for it tomorrow.”

Scott McLaughlin, No. 3 Chevrolet at Team Penske:

“We changed a little bit in Practice 2. Nothing crazy. A little smidgen here or there. Just missed the ballpark. Anyway, it is what it is.”

On the Indianapolis track and how weather sensitive it is…

“I’m sure we’ll get a little bit of sprinkles. Something, but it wasn’t crazy. It’s just tight. INDYCAR is just so hard. It’s why you love it. We just missed it and unfortunately, when you miss it by just a little bit, you’re just too far off. We’ll work hard. We’ve got a great team behind us. Hopefully, we’ll come through at the front.”

Will Power, No. 12 Chevrolet at Team Penske:

“I just tried a different gear in turn 7 to see. We’re just so far off. That was everything I had. I screwed the first lap up so we’re probably going to be 12th. Certainly, we’re missing a half of a second. The car doesn’t feel that bad. I felt in practice we were pretty good, kind of hanging out in the top-10. Never P1 material, but we’ll just have to dig deep tomorrow. We’ve had some pretty good races, so we’ll see if we can get the Verizon car up there. I got a new Chevy engine this week, so got plenty of horsepower. We’ll see what we can do.”

Conor Daly, No. 20 Chevrolet at Ed Carpenter Racing:

“Obviously, we’re going to try and work our butts off to be quick tomorrow but, you know, it’s kind of been the trend of our season. We’ve slipped a little back at every track we’ve been at. We have to do a better job and, you know, we as drivers have to deliver the information as best we can, and we’ve got to work together to make us better because both Rinus (VeeKay) and I can’t be happy with where we’re starting. We just got to be honest with ourselves and we’ve got to be willing to get this to the next level. It’s a real, real shame because obviously, we’ve had a tough year. Hopefully, tomorrow, you never know what could happen. We’ve always raced well here so we’ll try to take this BITNILE.COM Chevrolet forward.”

Rinus VeeKay, No. 21 Chevrolet at Ed Carpenter Racing:

“Today was difficult with the weather being unpredictable. We are missing the balance for the new tires so we are chasing it a bit. A tough session especially when a tenth would move us into the second round. We can race our way forward tomorrow. Even when things are tough like today, we always can make progress. We have an extra set of red tires for tomorrow and the team will do everything they can.”

Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Chevrolet at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR:

“P5 for us today in qualifying here for the Indy GP. My Turn 1 on that lap definitely didn’t deserve pole today, but we’ve got a strong race car. It should rain overnight, so I think warmup will be interesting, then we’ll give it hell in the race.”

Felix Rosenqvist, No. 6 Chevrolet at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR:

“It’s been a tough day to prefer. We’ve been quick since rolling off the trucks. But it’s always hard getting a lap in, and you know, traffic and things happening. It’s very tight, and one-tenth wrong, you’re out. It’s always hard to put it together here and it’s so tight. Big thanks to my Arrow McLaren team, SmartStop. We came together when it mattered in the end. That was our quickest run of the day. I did a little mistake in the snake on the final lap. I’m kind of beating myself up about it a little bit, but hey, we can’t be perfect. That was all I had for that lap.”

Alexander Rossi, No. 7 Chevrolet at Arrow McLaren INDYCAR:

“That’s pretty much it, unfortunately. We just haven’t quite been able to unlock this car to the level that we need for qualifying. We’re just perpetually seeming to qualify from 12th through 10th which is getting frustrating. You just have to keep working at it. It’s hard on these quick weekends. It’s hard when you only have so many bites at it. We’re close, we just haven’t quite found that tuning tweak that I guess I need.”

Santino Ferrucci, No. 14 Chevrolet at AJ Foyt Racing:

“We just had another electrical issue that really set us back. Obviously, I just didn’t put together the cleanest one-lap run because we were trying to fight traffic and not impede anybody. It is so tight here. This is the tightest track we come to all year. Everyone’s got a million laps here. Our car is just not in the window yet. We’re working on it. We’re doing the best we can. Nothing like starting from the back and trying to make our way through the field tomorrow, and I’m sure we’ll do that.”

Benjamin Pedersen, No. 55 Chevrolet at AJ Foyt Racing:

“Honestly, it was a really good lap. Unfortunately, we just don’t quite have the speed in the car. Definitely the best lap I’ve done in an Indy car so I’m very proud of that. I think P23 for tomorrow. We’ll see if we can’t work some magic on the strategy perspective and have a really good race and move forward, which is the big goal. First time here in an Indy car and loving it. Just trying to get better and better every day.”

Callum Ilott, No. 77 Chevrolet at Juncos Hollinger Racing:

“We’re just not in the right direction yet. Not easy. We tried so much stuff to make it work and we’re just missing something. We put the car into a good balance window, but I mean, I think it was seven-tenths to the front. Not easy, not easy. The race is a different story. We’ll see what we can do.”

Agustin Canapino, No. 78 Chevrolet at Juncos Hollinger Racing:

“We didn’t had the best qualifying, honestly. We made some changes. The car feels a little bit worse than practice. In practice, we were better, but it is what it is. We will do our best tomorrow. We’ll try to finish the race and take some points.”

FELIX ROSENQVIST, NO. 6 ARROW MCLAREN CHEVROLET – Press Conference Transcript:

TELL US ABOUT THAT LAST LAP AND THE LAST COUPLE CORNERS BEFORE YOU HIT THE START-FINISH LINE?

“Yeah, I thought I had a mega lap going and I kind of messed it up a bit in Turn 9. I was just going for make or break and didn’t make. Three thousandths, that’s always tough, but honestly, I’m super happy to be P2. This is a track where, as Christian said, I think a lot of European drivers have excelled, and I’ve had two poles here previously and almost three now, so maybe try starting on P2 instead and see how that goes.”

FELIX, WITH HOW TIGHT IT WAS TO CHRISTIAN, LOOKING BACK OVER THAT LAP, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY THAT MIGHT HAVE GOTTEN YOU POLE, OR WAS THAT THE FASTEST THAT CAR WAS GOING TO GO?

“I mean, you can always go better. I think maybe Christian could probably go a tenth or two quicker (…) That’s why I don’t bother anymore saying I could have, should have. We all go all in, all out, out there, and it’s always so tight. This track honestly, if you’re one or one and a half tenths off, it can normally be the difference of maybe starting like 16th or P5. Like it’s so tight. You have to really put it together every qualifying segment. It’s hard. There’s traffic out there. There’s different challenges coming towards you, and when it’s so tight, you just have to be perfect all the time. But yeah, we always look back and that’s why we get better every time. This time it didn’t work out, but I’m happy for Christian. That was an awesome run, and he really deserves it.”

DOES THIS CIRCUIT SEEM MORE EUROPEAN THAN THE OTHER ROAD CIRCUITS ON THE SERIES, AND IF SO, WHAT MAKES IT THAT WAY?

“It’s just more about maximizing what you have rather than being like close to the walls or close to the gravel. I think here if you can make the car work for you, you can make a difference, and maybe it’s a bit of a smoother lap. You don’t see anyone really fighting the car a lot. You have a couple of snaps here and there, but it’s not like Detroit or Nashville or even Iowa, something like that. It’s a fairly smooth lap, smooth surface, high grip, and also the fact that we can do the lap in lap one is kind of unique. At least we can have kind of a slow out lap and then do a lap and then the tires are gone. I think that, at least for Christian, Formula 2, it’s pretty similar to that. But it’s not like we’re only good here, I think. But may be in other favor a bit.”

FELIX, YOU’VE QUALIFIED WELL BEFORE THIS YEAR, BUT THE RESULTS HAVEN’T QUITE BEEN THERE. ANY REASON, ANY KIND OF PRE-RACE MEETING YOU’LL HAVE TO FIGURE OUT, HEY, HOW CAN WE EXECUTE AND GET THE FINISH THAT BACKS UP QUALIFYING?

“Well, I think our year has basically been two DNFs on the first two races, set us back a lot. We were pretty much last in the standings after those two races, and since then we’ve been in the mix pretty much everywhere. We haven’t really had a proper weekend in terms of everything coming together, which is normal, but we’ve been top 10 pretty much every session, qualifying race. I think this weekend things just kind of worked out a bit better so far at least, and that’s just INDYCAR. You just need to put yourself in that position as many times as you can in the season, and hopefully we can get on a bit of a roll from here, and I think it will come to us.”

WHAT SEGMENT OF THIS TRACK THAT IF YOU GET IT RIGHT, YOU KNOW YOU’RE ON A HOT LAP? IS THERE ONE PART OF THIS TRACK THAT’S THE TELLTALE FOR WHAT’S COMING?

“My first attempt on the first set of reds, I blew it in Turn 1, so it’s kind of like you have to go for it, but we’re doing our laps in the first lap, so if the tires aren’t in, and you go for it, you’re not going to make it. That’s kind of what Christian said, when you pass that corner you know what grip you have, you know what you need to do, but you never really know until you turn in for Turn 12, which is after the timing line.”

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