Alex Palou led throughout IndyCar’s first qualifying session featuring hybrid power but only narrowly beat Pato O’Ward to pole position at Mid-Ohio.
The Ganassi driver headed all three phases of qualifying he appeared in, and laid down a strong marker for provisional pole position at the end of the Fast Six session with a lap of 1’05.3511.
O’Ward, however, had bought himself an extra run in the Fast Six by doing one fewer in the previous session. As he began his final lap after Palou’s he briefly dipped inside his rival’s sector times halfway around the lap.
But understeer through the final two corners appeared to put paid to his chances of improving overall. He fell short of Palou’s time at the line by just 0.0024 seconds.
David Malukas, who was originally due to be O’Ward’s team mate this year, produced a superb lap on his second appearance for Meyer Shank to claim third place on the grid. However he was the best part of three-tenths of a second slower than Palou around the resurfaced Mid-Ohio track. Colton Herta will join him on the second row of the grid.
Marcus Armstrong qualified fifth but his grid penalty for an engine change means he will fall to 11th. His relegation promotes Marcus Ericsson to fifth place. Scott McLaughlin, who missed the cut for the Fast Six by just two-hundredths of a second, will therefore start sixth.
Alexander Rossi also came within a tenth of a second of reaching the pole position shoot-out. He ended the Fast 12 in ninth place ahead of Christian Rasmussen. The Carpenter driver produced one of the surprises of the session by knocking out Felix Rosenqvist with the final lap of Group One. Christian Lundgaard, Linus Lundqvist and Romain Grosjean also progressed no further than the Fast 12 round.
Several big names fell in Group Two having been drawn against each other, including Penske team mates Josef Newgarden and Will Power, the latter after an error at turn four, and Scott Dixon.
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Full qualifying result to follow.
IndyCar
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