Colton Herta took the rest of the IndyCar field to task on Saturday, rocketing to pole on the Long Beach street course.
Grippy conditions led to ultra-fast lap times, and Herta was able to complete the 1.9-mile course in 1 minute 5.309 seconds, nearly a full second quicker than the previous lap record.
Josef Newgarden and Alex Palou each significantly upped their pace from the earlier practice sessions, and will start second and third respectively.
Felix Rosenqvist impressed with a lap good enough to start fourth, just ahead of Alexander Rossi who looked in the early portion of the knockout session like he might have to pace to start on the front row.
In the final seconds of qualifying, Romain Grosjean pushed a bit too hard in the tricky turn 5 and ran into the tire barriers. Even though he was on track to set a pole-winning time, the popular F1 convert will start from sixth place.
There was some drama as the session was red flagged with two seconds left in the session for Grosjean, meaning that race control ruled that all remaining cars were allowed one extra flying lap to finish the session.
The single lap that was allowed was not enough to give drivers time to sufficiently warm their tires, however, and the order ultimately did not change.
There was a bit of drama in the second knockout round as well, when there was a lot of stacking up in the hairpin leading up the timing line.
After deliberation, no penalties were handed out and Will Power was not allowed to advance. He will start from seventh after he was less than one one-thousandth of a second below the cut line.
Simon Pagenaud, who had been one of the fastest drivers throughout practice, was not quite able to put in the times of the front runners. He will start in 10th position, four spots ahead of his team-mate Helio Castroneves.
Scott Dixon continued his mediocre weekend, and will have to start from all the way back in 16th position.
Following one final warm-up session in the morning, the Grand Prix of Long Beach takes place Sunday at 12:30 PM Pacific Time, 3:30 PM Eastern Time.
| # | Driver | Time | Speed (MPH) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colton Herta | 01:05.3095 | 108.48 |
| 2 | Josef Newgarden | 01:05.7550 | 107.745 |
| 3 | Alex Palou | 01:05.8667 | 107.563 |
| 4 | Felix Rosenqvist | 01:05.9349 | 107.451 |
| 5 | Alexander Rossi | 01:06.0674 | 107.236 |
| 6 | Romain Grosjean | No Time | 0 |
| 7 | Will Power | 01:05.8745 | 107.55 |
| 8 | Marcus Ericsson | 01:05.9548 | 107.419 |
| 9 | Scott McLaughlin | 01:06.0507 | 107.263 |
| 10 | Simon Pagenaud | 01:06.0678 | 107.235 |
| 11 | Pato O’Ward | 01:06.0726 | 107.228 |
| 12 | Kyle Kirkwood | 01:06.2604 | 106.924 |
| 13 | Graham Rahal | 01:06.6896 | 106.235 |
| 14 | Helio Castroneves | 01:06.2467 | 106.946 |
| 15 | Rinus VeeKay | 01:06.7049 | 106.211 |
| 16 | Scott Dixon | 01:06.3241 | 106.821 |
| 17 | Devlin DeFrancesco | 01:06.7418 | 106.152 |
| 18 | Conor Daly | 01:06.4489 | 106.62 |
| 19 | David Malukas | 01:06.7925 | 106.072 |
| 20 | Christian Lundgaard | 01:06.5049 | 106.53 |
| 21 | Jack Harvey | 01:06.9708 | 105.789 |
| 22 | Callum Ilott | 01:06.6672 | 106.271 |
| 23 | Takuma Sato | 01:07.1001 | 105.586 |
| 24 | Dalton Kellett | 01:06.7679 | 106.111 |
| 25 | Jimmie Johnson | 01:09.0287 | 102.636 |
| 26 | Tatiana Calderon | 01:07.4789 | 104.993 |
… he’s a choker. He choked. Again –