After setting the fastest lap for the day in the last seconds of qualifying, Pato O’Ward claimed pole for Saturday’s Big Machine Spiked Cooler Grand Prix.
The young Mexican driver drove around the 2.44-mile Indianapolis road course in 1:10.7147, just seven thousandths of a second ahead of Will Power.
The final laps saw most all of the top 12 cars that were in contention for pole hop into the top spot at some point, but the 10-minute session ended with O’Ward on top.
The Arrow McLaren SP driver escaped penalty after being accused of blocking Power by Team Penske. No penalty was given, however, and he was able to keep his pole award.
The second portion of the session was held under cloud cover that dropped track temperatures considerably, leading to the fastest times of the day.
Romain Grosjean looked like he was going to take his second pole in as many attempts at the IMS road course, but was narrowly beat to the top spot and will start in third place.
Christian Lundgaard dazzled in qualifying just as he did in practice earlier in the day, advancing to the Fast-12 in his first ever IndyCar weekend.
The young F2 driver will start in fourth, just ahead of Colton Herta, after putting on an impressive all-around Friday performance.
Rinus VeeKay also looked like he could easily walk away with pole, but was shuffled down to ninth and will have his work cut out for him if he wants to repeat victory at the IMS road course.
Josef Newgarden just missed out on advancing to the final 12 after getting caught behind slower traffic on his best attempt at a fast lap. He will start in the lower-third of the field after an engine penalty is applied prior to the race.
Scott Dixon found issues in the first round, spinning on the final corners of the lap and putting his Chip Ganassi Honda in the middle of the track.
Not only did Dixon receive a penalty for the incident, three other drivers received penalties for not slowing under the local yellow as well.
On Saturday, the 28-car field will get a short 30-minute warmup before jumping right into the race that afternoon. The green flag is scheduled to wave at 12:45 PM EDT.
| # | Driver | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pato O’Ward | 01:10.7147 | – |
| 2 | Will Power | 01:10.7214 | 0.0067 |
| 3 | Romain Grosjean | 01:10.7418 | 0.0204 |
| 4 | Christian Lundgaard | 01:10.7433 | 0.0015 |
| 5 | Colton Herta | 01:10.7631 | 0.0198 |
| 6 | Alex Palou | 01:10.8290 | 0.0659 |
| 7 | Jack Harvey | 01:10.8875 | 0.0585 |
| 8 | Conor Daly | 01:10.9532 | 0.0657 |
| 9 | Rinus VeeKay | 01:11.0208 | 0.0676 |
| 10 | Alexander Rossi | 01:11.0240 | 0.0032 |
| 11 | Marcus Ericsson | 01:11.0342 | 0.0102 |
| 12 | Simon Pagenaud | 01:11.1346 | 0.1004 |
| 13 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 01:11.5084 | – |
| 14 | Sebastien Bourdais | 01:11.5504 | – |
| 15 | Takuma Sato | 01:11.4174 | – |
| 16 | Graham Rahal | 01:11.5583 | – |
| 17 | Ed Jones | 01:11.4360 | – |
| 18 | Max Chilton | 01:11.5739 | – |
| 19 | Felix Rosenqvist | 01:11.5340 | – |
| 20 | Josef Newgarden | 01:11.3623 | grid penalty |
| 21 | Scott McLaughlin | 01:11.6676 | – |
| 22 | Jimmie Johnson | 01:11.8624 | – |
| 23 | Helio Castroneves | 01:11.7319 | – |
| 24 | James Hinchcliffe | 01:12.0813 | – |
| 25 | RC Enerson | 01:12.3344 | – |
| 26 | Scott Dixon | 01:12.2660 | – |
| 27 | Cody Ware | 01:13.7572 | – |
| 28 | Dalton Kellett | 01:12.5494 | – |
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