IndyCar is visiting another of its iconic natural terrain road courses this weekend, and Saturday’s qualifying session served up plenty of action.
The field of 27 was whittled down to six, then it was Alex Palou’s time to demonstrate exactly how good he is behind the wheel of his #10 CGR Honda.
Palou followed up last year’s pole at Mid-Ohio with another pole lap this year, completing a lap of the 2.26-mile course in 1:05.0215.
READ MORE: IndyCar Mid-Ohio – Full Qualifying Results
Christian Lundgaard appeared to have the pace to challenge for the top starting position, but he could not match the pace of the Spaniard’s final push lap. Lundgaard will start alongside in second.
Kyffin Simpson advanced to his first ever Fast Six round, impressively knocking out Kyle Kirkwood with a late lap in Round 2.
The sophomore driver earned the third starting position, impressing his crew and nearly everyone else who was watching on.
Nolan Siegel earned the fourth starting position, with the pair of 20-year-olds completing the youngest row on the grid.
Colton Herta and Louis Foster advanced to the final round, but were not able to earn a spot higher than the third row.
There were concerns about the hybrid unit during the all-out session, with Andretti Global telling Kirkwood not to deploy or regenerate electric energy during his out lap.
Despite the limitation Kirkwood was on pace to advance to the final round, but was not able to complete his lap on account of a car disturbing air in front of him. He missed out on the cut line by four hundredths of a second.
Marcus Armstrong, Scott Dixon, and Christian Rasmussen rounded out the first five rows of the grid with their performances.
Rasmussen in particular was affected by a mistake on his own doing, which saw him push the wrong button on his wheel and accidentally downshift instead of deploying his hybrid power.
From the back
Perhaps the biggest story of the afternoon was the continued struggles at Team Penske.
All three of the team’s ace driver squad were eliminated in the first round, which puts them well down the grid for Sunday’s main event.
Fastest of the trio was Josef Newgarden, who denied interviews and retreated to his hauler after qualifying in 18th.
Each driver at the famous team only has one podium so far this season, which is well below expectations.
Felix Rosenqvist also missed out on advancing out of the first round, and he missed the cut line by just over 0.01 seconds.
He brushed aside the fact that he was mildly impeded on his final lap, and quickly set his sights on using his pace to move forward on Sunday.
Rinus VeeKay was given a penalty for causing a local yellow during the session. He was not going to advance anyway, but the demotion pushed him back to the final position on the grid.
Drivers will get a short warm-up session on Sunday morning before the 90-lap main event at 1:00 PM eastern time.
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