This will be short and sweet. Track drying efforts ran out of time. Race One will resume at 8:00 am Central time on FS1. Race Two will run as scheduled. After sitting around all day, we are ready to get out of here. Come back tomorrow.
George Phillips
It’s Race Day One at the Milwaukee Mile! We arrived at the track around 9:40 am, but with Qualifying at 10:00; that didn’t give me time to write – so this is your good morning post.
The skies were dark when qualifying started. That kept the track cool, which undoubtedly helped rookies like Dennis Hauger and Mick Schumacher post very fast times early on. I happened to be standing behind the Hauger pit, watching with my friend Mile Silver (thepitwindow.copm). As each driver took a shot at Hauger and failed, their crew got more and more excited. Their dreams of a pole ended when Will Power went faster than Hauger on his first lap – knocking him off the pole for Race One. Soon afterward, Schumacher was knocked off by Josef Newgarden for Race Two.
Both rookie drivers should still be happy with their results, at least for the respective races where they had been sitting on the pole for a while. Hauger will start Race One from seventh, and Race Two from fifteenth. Schumacher will start Race Two from thirteenth, but for Sunday’s Race Two, will roll off an impressive fourth.
Today’s Race One starting grid will be affected by five nine-spot grid penalties for Scot McLaughlin, who happened to win the pole, David Malukas, Alex Palou, Rinus VeeKay and Sting Ray Robb. While McLaughlin will not be allowed to start on pole for Race One, he will get the extra point for winning it. Pato O’Ward will end up starting from the pole for Race One with all of the penalized cars moved behind him.
Alex Palou won the pole for Sunday’s Race Two, and he will be allowed to start from there; since the penalties apply to Saturday only. Palou will also get the extra point for the pole, that he so desperately needed. Pato O’ Ward will start second, meaning he will start both races from the front row. Newgarden will start Race One alongside O’Ward.
Three cars crashed Friday in practice. Nolen Siegel backed his car into the Turn Two wall. He qualified dead-last for both races. The penalty for Sting Ray Robb will keep Siegel from starting last, but no penalty can save him for Sunday. Christian Rasmussen and Kyle Kirkwood got together going into Turn Three on Friday. Kirkwood said his repaired car was very loose in qualifying. I believe him. He qualified twenty-second and twenty-fourth respectively for Saturday and Sunday. Rasmussen had to climb into his backup car. He qualified eighteenth for Race One and seventeenth for Race Two.
I still think that Josef Newgarden and David Malukas will be your two winners this weekend. That would continue Chevy’s streak of winning every race at Milwaukee since this current engine formula was introduced in 2012.
The weather continues to be a question mark for today. It’s currently 74° and brighter than it was in most of qualifying. The weather system that looked so ominous earlier this morning, appears to be breaking up as it approaches Milwaukee. Rain is still expected, however. The race is expected to be impacted, but not rained out. If it rains, it is predicted that they will have time to get the track dried and get the race in. We have until sunset to get it in, and that comes at 7:34 pm tonight.
We are going to go grab some lunch before the race. Race coverage begins on Big FOX at 1:30 pm local time (2:30 pm EDT). The green flag is scheduled for around 1:50 pm, but don’t be surprised if the move the green flag up to 1:31 in preparation for rain.
That will do it for now. As usual, I will close with photos that Susan took this morning from across the wall during qualifying. Please check back after the race.
George Phillips
The one and only practice of the weekend, proved to be beneficial to some and very costly for others. Nolen Siegel simply lost it and backed his car into the wall at the exit of Turn Two. The much more dramatic looking crash came much later in the practice. Kyle Kirkwood and Christian Rasmussen got together entering Turn Three. Both drivers blamed each other. There seemed to be a split in the media center, but most seem to lean toward blaming Rasmussen. After watching a few replays, I tend to put the blame on Kirkwood. Rasmussen was holding his distance from the wall, and Kirkwood seemed to me to be creeping up on him, but what do I know?
Welcome to the Milwaukee Mile! It is currently sunny and 76°. It’s a strange schedule today. The media bullpen was the first item on the agenda at 11:00. We usually don’t attend those, as they are normally much, much earlier than that.
After what turned out to be a phenomenally successful Freedom 250 weekend that actually matched all the hype that preceded it; things sort of get back to normal within the NTT IndyCar Series as they head to the Milwaukee Mile. I said sort of because this will be the only double-header weekend of the season, and there is nothing normal about a double-header weekend.
The Freedom 250 had a lot of hype leading up to it, and a lot of patriotism and pomp on full display. Surely the race couldn’t match the build-up could it? In my opinion – it actually did. Before everyone jumps on me for being an IndyCar cheerleader, keep in mind that I usually have relatively low expectations going into a temporary street race weekend. American Kyle Kirkwood put the cherry on top by dominating and winning, leading 128 of the 147 laps.
After about seven months of buildup, the Freedom 250 weekend is upon us. For those that have been living under a rock, this event was designed to be a one-time event to be run as part of America 250 – the year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, long recognized as the birthday of the US.
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