A Surprising Fast Six for Qualifying
Good afternoon from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway! I can’t tell you how good it is to say (type) that. We were about an hour delayed leaving Nashville. I had plans of stopping at The Workingman’s Friend for a burger before going to the track, but we crossed the bridge into Indiana about an hour and a half before Qualifying was to begin. That meant that the burger was out, and we went straight to the track.
We pulled up to the admin building to get Susan’s credentials and our parking pass, just as we heard Group II of Round I pulling out of the pits. By the time we got out of there, got parked and got up to the media center – Round II had just completed. We dropped our stuff in there and rushed to the pits. While this morning’s post may have been a little down on this event, as we kept heading north this morning, I kept getting more and more excited. Once we got on the grounds, I was pinching myself that we were back to one of our favorite places on earth. It is really good to be back here.
We got there about two minutes before the beginning of the Firestone Fast Six. So if you are looking to me to tell you what this day has been like so far, I’m afraid I can’t tell you.
In fact, as I type – most of you can probably tell me what happened in the first two rounds.
What I do know is that Graham Rahal won the pole in dramatic fashion. I was watching the video boards from the pits. For the last minute or so, it looked as if Christian Lundgaard would snag the pole – just as he did for the GMR Grand Prix in May. I actually thought all cars had completed their last flying lap, but then came Rahal tripping the timeline – nipping his teammate by a tenth of a second.
Tomorrow’s grid will feature an all-Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLLR) front row. Two teams were conspicuously missing from the Firestone Fast Six – Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske. I’m not exactly sure what happened. I asked a couple of people in the media center and all they said was…they were slow.
The remainder of the Fast Six was Alexander Rossi, Pato O’Ward, Devlin DeFrancesco and Romain Grosjean. If you notice the pattern of the first three rows, each row is made up of the same team – RLLR, Arrow McLaren and Andretti Autosport.
Congratulations to the much-maligned Devlin DeFrancesco for making his first career Firestone Fast Six.I say “much-maligned”, because I’ve been right in there with them throwing stones at DeFrancesco. But when praise is due, I’ll give it. He has improved quite a bit in his last few races. I won’t be surprised at all if another team picks him up, after his contract with Andretti ends at the end of the season.
I still stand by my pick for Romain Grosjean to earn his first career IndyCar win. He was unspectacular in qualifying, but he knows how to race this circuit.
Speaking of having this circuit figured out, so does the engineering staff of RLLR. Graham Rahal will start on pole, while Christian Lundgaard will start second. Jack Harvey was no slouch in the third RLLR car, starting eighth.
In the post-qualifying press-conference, Christian Lundgaard naturally expressed disappointment for missing the pole – but he seemed genuinely happy for Rahal, and not just because Graham is essentially his boss. He was asked why he performs so well on this track. He immediately gave the credit to the team for having such good cars at this track.
When Rahal joined the press-conference, he did not shy away from questions about this being redemption for failing to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 back in May. He correctly said that this race does not compare to the 500, but this really did feel good.
On the other end of the spectrum, the highest qualifying Penske/Ganassi car was Marcus Armstrong, who qualified seventh for Ganassi. The other Ganassi results saw championship leader Alex Palou qualify ninth, Scott Dixon will start sixteenth and Marcus Ericsson eighteenth. Team Penske fared worse than the Ganassi drivers. Scott McLaughlin led all Team Penske drivers by starting eleventh. Will Power qualified seventeenth and Josef Newgarden will inexplicable start nineteenth.
One of the more pleasant surprises in qualifying was the performance of Meyer Shank Racing (MSR). Earlier in the day, it was announced that MSR had signed Tom Blomqvist one of their two fulltime seats. That announcement was expected, but I did not hear anyone suggest the second part of their announcement – Helio Castroneves has bought into a minority ownership position with the team. He will continue his quest for a fifth Indianapolis 500, but will also work with sponsors and serve in an ambassador role, as well as serve as a driver coach – much like the role that Tony Kanaan has at Arrow McLaren, but Kanaan does not have an ownership stake.
As far as today goes, Castroneves qualified twelfth, while Linus Lundqvist will start fourteenth in his second career IndyCar start.
The final IndyCar practice of the weekend will start at 4:00 pm this afternoon, and will be shown on Peacock. Most likely, this will be my only on-site post today, unless something very significant happens in this afternoon’s practice. We will be down in the pits for the practice, but shortly afterwards – we are going to grab an early dinner that may or may not be at Dawson’s, and then go in and check-in at out hotel. This day has flown, and I see us turning in early.
We will be here tomorrow for the IndyCar race at 2:00 pm. Don’t forget, Saturday’s race will be shown on USA Network. We will either go to Charlie Brown’s or The Workingman’s Friend tomorrow morning before the race, as we try to cram all of our Month of May traditions into one weekend in August. Please check back tomorrow.
George Phillips
Oilpressure 
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