Oilpressure

What a perfect day at the race track! First of all, my Tennessee Vols won – beating Syracuse 45-26. While that was going on, we got to watch an interesting qualifying session that say David Malukas come up just short for the second week in a row. This time it was Pato O’Ward knocking Malukas off of the pole. Once again, Malukas will start on the outside of the front-row. And no, that is not called the outside pole, as I heard someone say today.

O’Ward’s teammate, Christian Lundgaard will start third, while four-time champion Alex Palou qualified fourth.

Hometown hero Josef Newgarden will start sixth, alongside Scott Dixon who will roll off fifth.

There are two grid penalties. One is for Callum Ilott, while the other involves last week’s winner Christian Rasmussen. Ilott qualified ninth and Rasmussen was sixteenth. Both cars will slide back nine spots when they line up on the grid tomorrow.

Newgarden was the highest qualified Team Penske driver, at sixth. Scott McLaughlin qualified eighth, while Will Power was the twelfth quickest.

Of course, Power is the one driver people here are talking about. The general consensus is that Palou is staying put. It is debatable whether or not Chip Ganassi will let him out of his contract. But I’ve also been told by someone a lot more tuned in that myself that Colton Herta is gone!

Herta is apparently headed to F2, because that seems to be the best path to earn his Super License, which is required before he can drive in Formula One. That opens up a good seat at Andretti Global, and the consensus from those I’ve talked to is that Power will slip into the No. 26 very easily. Stay tuned. Next week has the potential to be wild.

That’s going to do it for us today. We will (hopefully) be here earlier in the morning. Please check back early tomorrow morning, then I’ll have a quick wrap-up after the race. Then I will have my usual Random Thoughts on Monday. Remember, tomorrow’s race coverage will start at 2:00 pm EDT on Big FOX, and the green-flag will fly around 2:40 pm EDT.

I will close with the photos that Susan took today. Please check back tomorrow morning. (All photos: Susan Phillips)

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 30, 2025 at 5:21 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.