It’s Race Day One at Milwaukee!
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
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