Herta was the first driver to drop into the 66s around the 1.968-mile course, with a 66.5710sec on his sixth lap that at the time left him half a second clear of the field. However with 35mins to go, a spin at Turn 6 saw last year’s Long Beach winner strike the wall with his rear wing.
While this was being fixed, Scott McLaughlin and Felix Rosenqvist threw in strong laps, the latter’s Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet only 0.0730sec slower than Herta. Teammate Pato O’Ward had a brief trip into the Turn 9 runoff that required a pushstart.
Scott Dixon, yesterday’s pacesetter Simon Pagenaud and Romain Grosjean also got within two-tenths of Herta. Dixon might have improved still further but had a miraculous escape from a half spin at Turn 4, that saw him clip the concrete with his right-front wing, requiring a return to the pits.
With 18mins to go, Herta then raised the bar and lowered his time and got down to 66.2138sec.
Closest opposition was St. Petersburg winner and championship leader, Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Scott McLaughlin, who was 0.3781sec away. Then Grosjean hit the top with a 66.0675sec on Firestone primaries, just as everyone was starting to switch to the softer alternates.
First of these to show potential pole-winning pace was Simon Pagenaud, who threw down a 65.9989.
Potential challengers to this top time were temporarily put on hold, as Jimmie Johnson, nursing a fracture in his splinted right hand after yesterday’s accident, slid nose-first into the Turn 1 tire wall on his 15th lap.
With the #48 Ganassi car cleared, everyone restarted the session with 10mins to go using Firestone reds, but swiftly the session was stopped again as rookie David Malukas slid quite gently straight into the tire wall at the Fountain turn and stalled, requiring another red. He was briefly joined by Jack Harvey in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda, but the Briton was able to back up and restart himself.
His teammate Graham Rahal did the same after the session resarted, striking the tires hard enough to dislodge his front wing.
With two minutes to go, Herta hit the front again with a 65.8353sec, and then teammate and two-time Long Beach winner Alexander Rossi slotted into second, one-tenth behind.
Their teammate Romain Grosjean did even better however, grabbing P1 with 65.6520sec run to head an Andretti 1-2-3. Herta responded but fell 0.0451sec short.
Disrupting the Andretti dominance at the last gasp was another two-time Long Beach winner Will Power, who emerged as the fastest Chevrolet runner, the #12 Team Penske moving into third, albeit 0.2863sec off Grosjean’s benchmark.
Pagenaud, another Andretti-affiliated driver, ended up fifth, ahead of Ganassi’s Marcus Ericsson and Alex Palou, defending series champion.
Kiwis McLaughlin and Dixon finished eighth and ninth, while the remarkable rookie, Indy Lights champion Kyle Kirkwood of AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet, grabbed 10th.
| Cla | Driver | Team | Laps | Time | Gap | Mph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Romain Grosjean |  Andretti Autosport | 23 | 1'05.652 | 107.914 | |
| 2 | Colton Herta | Andretti Autosport | 20 | 1'05.697 | 0.045 | 107.840 |
| 3 |  Will Power | Team Penske | 24 | 1'05.938 | 0.286 | 107.446 |
| 4 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti Autosport | 20 | 1'05.942 | 0.290 | 107.439 |
| 5 | Simon Pagenaud | Meyer Shank Racing | 19 | 1'05.998 | 0.346 | 107.347 |
| 6 |  Marcus Ericsson | Chip Ganassi Racing | 23 | 1'06.044 | 0.392 | 107.273 |
| 7 |  Alex Palou | Chip Ganassi Racing | 24 | 1'06.059 | 0.407 | 107.249 |
| 8 |  Scott McLaughlin | Team Penske | 24 | 1'06.174 | 0.522 | 107.063 |
| 9 | Scott Dixon | Chip Ganassi Racing | 23 | 1'06.216 | 0.564 | 106.995 |
| 10 | Kyle Kirkwood | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 21 | 1'06.248 | 0.596 | 106.943 |
| 11 |  Helio Castroneves | Meyer Shank Racing | 19 | 1'06.254 | 0.602 | 106.933 |
| 12 |  Rinus van Kalmthout | Ed Carpenter Racing | 21 | 1'06.279 | 0.627 | 106.892 |
| 13 | Josef Newgarden | Team Penske | 18 | 1'06.485 | 0.833 | 106.562 |
| 14 | Felix Rosenqvist | Arrow McLaren SP | 23 | 1'06.495 | 0.843 | 106.545 |
| 15 |  Callum Ilott | Juncos Hollinger Racing | 22 | 1'06.503 | 0.851 | 106.533 |
| 16 | David Malukas | Dale Coyne Racing with HMD | 20 | 1'06.547 | 0.895 | 106.463 |
| 17 |  Christian Lundgaard | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 20 | 1'06.720 | 1.068 | 106.186 |
| 18 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 18 | 1'06.760 | 1.108 | 106.122 |
| 19 | Conor Daly | Ed Carpenter Racing | 21 | 1'06.840 | 1.188 | 105.995 |
| 20 | Jack Harvey | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 24 | 1'06.847 | 1.195 | 105.985 |
| 21 |  Patricio O'Ward | Arrow McLaren SP | 21 | 1'06.950 | 1.298 | 105.821 |
| 22 |  Takuma Sato | Dale Coyne Racing | 23 | 1'07.193 | 1.541 | 105.438 |
| 23 |  Dalton Kellett | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 21 | 1'07.272 | 1.620 | 105.314 |
| 24 | Devlin DeFrancesco | Andretti Autosport | 21 | 1'07.434 | 1.782 | 105.062 |
| 25 |  Tatiana Calderon | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 19 | 1'07.950 | 2.298 | 104.264 |
| 26 | Jimmie Johnson | Chip Ganassi Racing | 14 | 1'08.389 | 2.737 | 103.594 |
| View full results | ||||||
