Oilpressure

Qualifying is complete for the 2022 Bommarito automotive Group 500, and the historic significance can’t be overlooked. Will Power won the pole and with the bonus point, extends his lead over Scott Dixon to seven. But by winning another pole, Power tied Mario Andretti’s long-standing record of 67 IndyCar poles, that was set at Michigan in 1993.

In the post-qualifying press conference, Power said he never really thought about reaching Mario’s record until he won his sixtieth pole. This is his fourth pole of the season, and he has two more shots this season to pass Mario and take sole possession of first place by winning No. 68.

What is interesting is that the entire points race is included in the first three rows. Points leader Power shares the front row with Marcus Ericsson, who currently sits third in points. Josef Newgarden, who sits fourth in points, is on the inside of the second row. His teammate Scott McLaughlin is on the outside of Row Two. Alex Palou is fifth in points, and sits on the inside of Row Three. Scott Dixon trails Power by seven points and sits alongside Palou. McLaughlin is the only driver in the first three rows, who is not a realistic contender for the championship.

There were a few surprises in qualifying, positive and not so positive. The much-maligned Devlin DeFrancesco qualified on the outside of Row Five, out qualifying his Andretti teammates Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta – who qualified respectively on Row Six. David Malukas qualified thirteenth – exactly where he ranked at the end of this afternoon’s practice.

Conor Daly was the fastest of the three cars from Ed Carpenter Racing. Daly qualified sixteenth, but Rinus VeeKay and Ed Carpenter’s times were only good enough for twenty-third and twenty-fifth. Felix Rosenqvist crashed on his qualifying attempt and will start from the back.

I was also surprised at the Rahal cars. Jack Harvey was the fastest of the three cars, and will start fifteenth. Graham Rahal will start just behind Harvey in seventeenth, while rookie sensation Christian Lundgaard will roll off the grid in the nineteenth position.

That will do it for me for today. I will close with a few shots that I got of drivers after qualifying. Mrs. Oilpressure would have done a much better job, but at least I tried. I will watch the final practice tonight, then climb up in the stands and watch the 80-lap Silver Crown race as a total fan. I caught some of their practice today and those things sound like beasts. I am really looking forward to it.

Please check back tomorrow morning, as I plan to be here relatively early. I’ll have a post about my visit over to the Midway area and my encounter with an overzealous security guard. Thanks for following along today. We’ll do this again tomorrow.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 19, 2022 at 5:38 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.