Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward has claimed pole position for the first of two races of the Grand Prix of Detroit on the Belle Isle street circuit.
Changes were made to qualifying for the weekend with the removal of the Firestone Fast Six which meant the top half of the grid was set via the Fast 12.
O’Ward had looked fast throughout the session, but saved his best efforts for the final session to claim his third NTT IndyCar Series pole position.
Alexander Rossi was able to secure his best qualifying position of the season so far in second place, his pace was clear to see after dominating his first group by 0.8s and carried that through to the Fast 12.
Dale Coyne Racing put in a solid effort with their two cars with Romain Grosjean leading Ed Jones on the second row the grid.
Starting fifth will be Josef Newgarden who had initially looked to be in contention for pole early on, but the pace wasn’t there at the end of the session. He will be joined on the third row by Colton Herta.
Will Power will be left rueing as to what could have been after knocking a rear toe-link on his final lap which was looking fast enough to give him a 56th career pole. His previous best lap was good enough to leave him seventh.
Like Newgarden, Ryan Hunter-Reay showed strong pace early on but was unable to get the best out of his DHL-Honda and will start from eighth.
Simon Pagenaud will head an all French fifth row with Sebastien Bourdais alongside him.
After the strong showing at the Indy 500, it was a difficult qualifying session for the Chip Ganassi outfit as Scott Dixon could do no better than 11th on the grid ahead of ECR’s Rinus VeeKay.
The Kiwi was unable to captialise on the misfortune of his team-mate and championship leader Alex Palou, who will start from the back of the field after failing to make it through the first part of qualifying.
The current points leader Alex Palou will start in the final position after his penalty stemming from an engine change in Indianapolis is applied.
The first of the two races in Detroit will get underway at 13:00 EDT.
| # | Driver | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pato O’Ward | 01:15.5776 | – |
| 2 | Alexander Rossi | 01:15.6584 | 0.0808 |
| 3 | Romain Grosjean | 01:15.7433 | 0.1657 |
| 4 | Ed Jones | 01:15.8119 | 0.2343 |
| 5 | Josef Newgarden | 01:15.8697 | 0.2921 |
| 6 | Colton Herta | 01:16.0832 | 0.5056 |
| 7 | Will Power | 01:16.0877 | 0.5101 |
| 8 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 01:16.1293 | 0.5517 |
| 9 | Simon Pagenaud | 01:16.6606 | 1.0830 |
| 10 | Sebastien Bourdais | 01:17.4333 | 1.8557 |
| 11 | Scott Dixon | 01:17.8680 | 2.2904 |
| 12 | Rinus VeeKay | 01:17.8776 | 2.3000 |
| 13 | James Hinchcliffe | 01:17.0691 | – |
| 14 | Felix Rosenqvist | 01:16.4620 | – |
| 15 | Marcus Ericsson | 01:17.1579 | – |
| 16 | Takuma Sato | 01:16.4713 | – |
| 17 | Conor Daly | 01:17.2904 | – |
| 18 | Max Chilton | 01:16.6093 | – |
| 19 | Jack Harvey | 01:17.4180 | – |
| 20 | Graham Rahal | 01:16.6694 | – |
| 21 | Santino Ferrucci | 01:16.6880 | – |
| 22 | Jimmie Johnson | 01:19.0944 | – |
| 23 | Scott McLaughlin | 01:17.5569 | – |
| 24 | Dalton Kellett | 01:19.6697 | – |
| 25 | Alex Palou | 01:17.5190 | Penalty |
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