Late Saturday morning, the 25 drivers of the NTT IndyCar Series took to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course for qualifying.
Qualifying was originally scheduled for the day before, but standing water on track due to afternoon rains led to the session being postponed by approximately 18 hours.
There were no weather troubles on Saturday, however, and a tight battle for pole played out under partly cloudy skies.
The battle was tight all the way through the field, except at the very top.
Alex Palou put on a clinic once again, placing his #10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda on pole by over half a second with a lap of 1:09.748.
Other drivers could barely understand how Palou put in the lap he did, such was his pace on the clock.
Pato O’Ward overcame frustrating setup issues from the day before to earn a spot on the outside of the front row.
The second row will be filled by Felix Rosenqvist and Christian Lundgaard, who gave Arrow McLaren two representatives in the top two rows.
David Malukas was fifth quick in his Team Penske throwback livery, and Louis Foster rounded out the final session with a sixth place effort.
Outside looking in
Just on the outside of the Fast Six was Graham Rahal, with the veteran missing the cut and earning the seventh starting position.
The veteran has found success at this track in the past and was carrying a lot of pace in the early part of the weekend, but just missed out on fighting for the top six positions.
Scott Dixon and Kyle Kirkwood earned eighth and ninth on the grid respectively, with both drivers setting near identical times as they fought traffic that interrupted their attempts.
Both were frustrated with their lost chance to fight for a spot higher up the grid.
Josef Newgarden rounded out the top 10 of the grid with his attempt, which was less than a tenth of a second slower than the three in front of him.
One has to look well down the order to find the third Team Penske driver, with Scott McLaughlin earning the 17th grid position.
The Kiwi admitted his team made setup adjustments going into the session and overshot the ideal balance on his #3 entry.
Alexander Rossi was a bit higher up the order, earning the 13th starting spot after missing the Top 12 cut by just 0.0011 seconds.
At the very back of the grid is Will Power. The veteran continues to have inconsistent luck since switching to Andretti Global this season, and will have to fight from the final starting position later in the day.
There is no overnight break before the race, with the 85-lap main event taking place in four hours’ time at 4:30 PM eastern time.
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