Santino Ferrucci Nabs 1st IndyCar Pole at Portland

In AJ Foyt Racing’s first NTT IndyCar Series pole position since 2014 at Detroit, Santino Ferrucci claimed the top spot for Sunday’s (Aug. 25) Bitnile Grand Prix at Portland International Raceway.

Ferrucci, who was already on the pole as the rest of the Firestone Fast Six competitors set their final laps, went faster than his previous fastest lap with a pole-winning lap of 58.2046 seconds to average 121.475 mph around the 12-turn, 1.964-mile road course.

“I think it’s no secret how hard we’ve been working this year, how hard I’ve been working, Larry [Foyt, team president], our entire staff,” Ferrucci said on pit road. “Today we just felt it. We unrolled off the trailer amazing. I mean, it’s been a year of hard work and progression and we’ve showed some real speed at certain times and it feels great to put it together, man.”

The No. 14 Chevrolet was just over a tenth of a second faster than Will Power, who will line up second.

Alex Palou and Christian Lundgaard qualified third and fourth ahead of Kyle Kirkwood and Graham Rahal, who each have six-position grid penalties for unapproved engine changes.

Qualifying began with the field split into the customary two groups in round one, with Lundgaard, Kirkwood, Ferrucci, Colton Herta, Rahal and Scott Dixon advancing from group one. Group two saw Palou, Power, Marcus Armstrong, Marcus Ericsson, Romain Grosjean and Josef Newgarden advancing to the Fast 12 session.

After 10 minutes of track action, Power, Kirkwood, Palou, Lundgaard, Ferrucci and Rahal advanced to the Firestone Fast Six. Before engine change penalties, Newgarden, Grosjean, Armstrong, Herta, Dixon and Ericsson were seventh through 12th on the provisional grid.

The 110-lap race will air live Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network.