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What do I know? I predicted that a wet track had the potential to put a lot of fast cars in the back. The Fast Twelve consisted of all five Ganassi cars, all three Penske cars, two Arrow McLaren cars and two Andretti Global cars. There were no surprises, whatsoever – unless you want to include the two rookies from Ganassi. More on that in a minute.

The Firestone Fast Six consisted of Josef Newgarden, Will Power, Kyle Kirkwood, Marcus Armstrong, Colton Herta and Linus Lundqvist. The only driver you would consider and surprise was Linus Lundqvist. Guess who won the pole? Linus Lundqvist.

This was the first career pole for Lundqvist, and it couldn’t come at a better time. He has been struggling for results, ever since he got on the podium at Barber. His last three races saw finishes of twenty-fourth, twenty-eighth and twenty-second; which has him mired in eighteenth in points. He is a rookie, but Chip Ganassi does not have much of a track record of patience – even when dealing with rookies.

Colton Herta qualified on the front row, alongside Lundqvist. Marcus Armstrong and Kyle Kirkwood, both qualified on the second row.

The two Penske drivers did not fare well in the Firestone Fast Six. Will Power spun in Canada Corner, bringing out the red flag. Then as the clock was winding down, Josef Newgarden lost control of his car coming out of The Kink at a high rate of speed, and he spun violently before backing his car into the tire barrier, hitting it very hard. The car hit so hard that it went up into the air on impact. Fortunately, Newgarden got out of the car, seemingly unhurt. The car did not fare so well. His team has a long night ahead of them, and that’s assuming it can be rebuilt. He may have to go to his backup, which still involves a lot of work.

Nolan Siegel showed that he deserved to be called up at the last minute, filling in for Agustin Canapino in the No. 78 for Juncos Hollinger Racing. He qualified twenty-first, barely twenty-four hours after finding out he would be driving the car this weekend. He out-qualified names like Helio Castroneves, Graham Rahal and Felix Rosenqvist.

Alex Palou barely missed the Fast Six, but as he was battling to make it in – he went off twice on the same lap. Palou will start seventh. Rounding out the Top-Ten was Scott McLaughlin, Alexander Rossi and Scott Dixon.

It was a crazy day of qualifying. Most of it was run in the wet, but it stopped near raining near the end of Round Two. By the end of the Firestone Fast, the sun was out. From what we are hearing and by looking at the radar, we may have seen the last of the rain for the weekend.

I mentioned Susan would have a post up here today. She worked on it, but had not finished it by the time qualifying rolled around. She will have it up sometime in the morning.

Congrats to Linus Lundqvist on his first career pole in the NTT IndyCar Series. That will do it for us today. We are going to our usual Saturday night spot – PJ Campbells at The Depot in Plymouth. It’s a German restaurant located in an old railroad depot that is over a hundred years old. I usually have the prime rib, which is excellent. But Susan tries different dishes each time and they are always good. It’s a popular spot, so we have to have reservations.

The Morning Warmup will take place tomorrow at 11:15 am CDT, and the race begins on Big NBC at 2:30 pm CDT (local time). I will close with photos that Susan took during qualifying. We will be here in the morning, so check back then.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on June 8, 2024 at 4:54 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.