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Team Penske will make up the front row for Sunday’s Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park. Scott McLaughlin will start on Pole as the defending champion of last year’s race here. Will Power will start second, alongside his team Penske teammate.

The Elephant in the Room with P2P, has never gone away this weekend. To the credit of both drivers in the post-qualifying press conference, they have not dodged the question and even brought up the situation on their own.

The morning practice saw Rinus VeeKay set the quickest time of the session, that is particular noteworthy, because he lost power during Round One of qualifying and will start dead-last in Sunday’s race. That may have been the biggest surprise of the qualifying session, but it was certainly not the only one.

Josef Newgarden led Friday’s practice session, but he did not make it into the Firestone Fast Six. Newgarden will start eighth on Sunday, on the outside of Row Four.

Throughout qualifying, Graham Rahal looked like one of the cars to beat, but he landed just on the outside of the Fast Six and looking in. He will start seventh and was none too happy about it. His teammate, Christian Lundgaard, is the highest placed Honda, and will start third. Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist will round out the final two starting spots respectively.

Marcus Armstrong was the lone representative of Chip Ganassi Racing in the Fast Six, and will start sixth. The performance of Ganassi this year continues to be a head-scratcher, and we heard loud whispers this weekend that three young drivers, two of them rookies, and expanding to a five-car team is taking its toll on the usually front-running team. I can imagine what it is like with two drivers chasing a championship, one still learning his craft and two total rookies all on the same team. Scott Dixon will start thirteenth, and Alex Palou starts in the tenth spot.

Felix Rosenqvist continued his run of three straight trips to the Firestone Fast Six to start the season. His rookie teammate, Tom Blomqvist, even found his way into the second round and will start twelfth. It is getting to the point that it is no longer a surprise to see Rosenqvist at the front. It is getting to be that it’s expected.

This was not a banner weekend for Andretti Global. Their highest qualifier was Kyle Kirkwood, who will start ninth. Colton Herta qualified fifteenth and team newcomer Marcus Ericsson will start eighteenth.

We attended the morning practice in the pits, but we watched qualifying from the media center on the hill overlooking the Turn 14-15-16 complex. I needed to finish my story on Indy NXT driver Lindsay Brewer. Normally if Indy cars are on-track, we prefer to be by the track (unless it’s raining, of course). I felt somewhat isolated from qualifications, watching as I could from my den. But I got the story done and it was finished and posted as qualifying was wrapping up. Please give it a read. I think you’ll come away with a high opinion of the latest Indy NXT driver for Ricardo Juncos.

That’s going to do it for us today. We were very tired last night, Instead of sampling some of the local fare of central Alabama, we just went to a Cracker Barrel next door to our hotel. We are more rested today and will venture out tonight. Before we do that, there is a Buc-ee’s just across from the track, we are going to stop there and play around in there for a while. I will resist the temptation to get one of their famous sliced brisket sandwiches for dinner, but I do love Buc-ee’s.

I will close with a few photos that Susan took this morning, during the morning practice, plus a photo from our interview yesterday with Lindsay Brewer. Please check that out.

Be aware that the race tomorrow is earlier than it has been in the past. After the morning warm-up on Peacock at 10:15 am EDT, the race broadcast will begin Sunday on Big NBC at 1:00 pm EDT (Noon – local time). The green flag will fly about forty minutes after the beginning of the race broadcast. We will be here (fairly) early. Please check back then.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on April 27, 2024 at 6:03 pm and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.