Defending Long Beach winner Herta delivered the eighth pole position of his IndyCar career after struggling during Friday practice on the extremely gripped-up street track.
Herta produced a 1m05.309s lap in the decisive Fast Six session, eclipsing the previous qualifying lap record by 0.9s and earning pole by 0.445s over Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden. But he admitted it came as a result of difficulties in opening practice when he was almost seven-tenths off the pace.
“Yesterday was a struggle for us,” Herta said.
“We kind of went to the drawing board overnight, brought something completely different out for today. It worked really well, I was really happy with it.
“Obviously our one-lap pace is really strong. Now we’re kind of shifting focus to the racecar. Seems like we can get up to tyre temp really fast, get a lap in, so I was really happy with that.”
The extent of grip on Friday shocked several drivers, but Herta is unconvinced that the presence of IMSA SportsCar…
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