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David Malsher-Lopez

Portland IndyCar: McLaughlin takes third pole ahead of teammates

Firestone Fast Six

Alex Palou went out on primaries for a sighting lap, but his 59.4992 was inevitably eclipsed by Christian Lundgaard who went out on Firestone reds straight away and produced a 58.4482sec. Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin went second and third with their first flyers, then Power moved to the top… but only briefly. He had messed up his lap by hitting his upchange gearshift paddle after adjusting his front anti-rollbar in Turn 4.

He was eclipsed by both his teammates, McLaughlin landing a 58.2349sec, a mere 0.078sec ahead of Newgarden whose grid penalty for an early engine change means he’ll start eighth and allow Power to start from the front row.

Lundgaard did a superb job on his first race weekend at Portland to qualify fourth ahead of Ganassi’s lead runner Palou, and Pato O’Ward in the top Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet.

P

No

Name

FTime

Diff

Gap

FL

Laps

LapTime

LPit

Led

ST

FSpeed

Elapsed

Engine

Tire

Points

Team

1

3

Scott McLaughlin

58.2349

58.2349

0.000

2

3

58.3872

0

 

4

121.412

6:32.3956

Chevy

 

2

Team Penske

2

2

Josef Newgarden

58.3129

0.0780

0.0780

4

4

58.3129

0

 

1

121.249

6:22.1069

Chevy

 

1

Team Penske

3

12

Will Power

58.4254

0.1905

0.1125

2

3

58.9460

0

 

3

121.016

6:15.0173

Chevy

 

11

Team Penske

4

30

Christian Lundgaard

58.4482

0.2133

0.0228

2

5

58.5366

3

 

2

120.969

6:30.1441

Honda

 

21

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

5

10

Alex Palou

58.5075

0.2726

0.0593

4

5

58.5908

2

 

6

120.846

6:26.3869

Honda

 

9

Chip Ganassi Racing

6

5

Pato O'Ward

58.6090

0.3741

0.1015

3

4

58.7963

1

 

5

120.637

6:06.2517

Chevy

 

4

Arrow McLaren SP

 

 

Q2

On primaries, Power, Newgarden and McLaughlin went 1-2-3 for Team Penske-Chevrolet ahead of Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda, Power’s best effort on these harder compound tires being a 58.6447sec before pitting for reds.

Onto those soft Firestones, Power whittled his time down to 58.2516, then 58.0868sec, but he was shaded by Newgarden’s 57.9651sec, and Christian Lundgaard’s 58.0753.

Behind Power, teammate McLaughlin was fourth, while Pato O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren SP-Chevy and Palou were fifth and sixth.

O’Ward’s teammate Rosenqvist was less than a tenth slower but that was enough to keep him out of the Firestone Fast Six, yet ahead of Andretti Autosport-Honda’s Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi. That was still a relative success for Herta given his Round 1 issues (see below).

David Malukas of Dale Coyne Racing w/HMD-Honda will start 10th, ahead of the second RLL-Honda and Rinus VeeKay’s Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevy.

P

No

Name

FTime

Diff

Gap

FL

Laps

LapTime

LPit

Led

ST

FSpeed

Elapsed

Engine

Tire

Points

Team

1

2

Josef Newgarden

57.9651

57.9651

0.000

8

8

57.9651

5

 

1

121.977

9:35.9633

Chevy

 

1

Team Penske

2

30

Christian Lundgaard

58.0753

0.1102

0.1102

8

8

58.0753

5

 

2

121.745

10:21.3252

Honda

 

21

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

3

12

Will Power

58.0868

0.1217

0.0115

8

8

58.0868

5

 

4

121.721

9:41.5522

Chevy

 

11

Team Penske

4

3

Scott McLaughlin

58.2504

0.2853

0.1636

8

8

58.2504

5

 

6

121.379

9:47.2022

Chevy

 

2

Team Penske

5

5

Pato O'Ward

58.2593

0.2942

0.0089

7

8

58.3420

4

 

3

121.361

10:09.7299

Chevy

 

4

Arrow McLaren SP

6

10

Alex Palou

58.3381

0.3730

0.0788

8

8

58.3381

4

 

12

121.197

10:02.0733

Honda

 

9

Chip Ganassi Racing

7

7

Felix Rosenqvist

58.3475

0.3824

0.0094

8

8

58.3475

4

 

10

121.177

10:29.6483

Chevy

 

6

Arrow McLaren SP

8

26

Colton Herta

58.3925

0.4274

0.0450

7

8

59.0863

5

 

9

121.084

10:06.2389

Honda

 

17

Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian

9

27

Alexander Rossi

58.3983

0.4332

0.0058

8

8

58.3983

5

 

7

121.072

9:55.7431

Honda

 

18

Andretti Autosport

10

18

David Malukas

58.4038

0.4387

0.0055

8

8

58.4038

5

 

8

121.061

9:50.7053

Honda

 

14

Dale Coyne Racing with HMD

11

15

Graham Rahal

58.4475

0.4824

0.0437

8

8

58.4475

5

 

11

120.970

10:17.6903

Honda

 

13

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

12

21

Rinus VeeKay

58.5356

0.5705

0.0881

7

8

59.4539

5

 

5

120.788

10:14.0275

Chevy

 

16

Ed Carpenter Racing

 

Q1 Group 2

Scott McLaughlin and Scott Dixon got down to 58.7s on primary tires before they joined the other frontrunners in pitting for Firestone alternate compound ‘reds’.

Alex Palou laid down a 58.4647sec lap on the softer rubber ahead, but although he worked down to a 58.1497, he only just got through, because up at the top of the times, rookie Christian Lundgaard and Will Power got down to 57.9, with Scott McLaughlin only 0.0811sec in arrears.

The remarkable David Malukas made it through to Q2 again for Dale Coyne Racing with HMD-Honda, ahead of Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow Mclaren SP-Chevy.

The surprise failures to graduate were Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda’s main title hopes Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson in eighth and ninth.

P

No

Name

FTime

Diff

Gap

FL

Laps

LapTime

LPit

Led

ST

FSpeed

Elapsed

Engine

Tire

Points

Team

1

30

Christian Lundgaard

57.9218

57.9218

0.000

8

8

57.9218

5

 

3

122.068

10:35.9474

Honda

 

21

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

2

12

Will Power

57.9266

0.0048

0.0048

7

7

57.9266

4

 

1

122.058

9:42.5135

Chevy

 

11

Team Penske

3

3

Scott McLaughlin

58.0029

0.0811

0.0763

7

7

58.0029

5

 

2

121.897

8:59.2000

Chevy

 

2

Team Penske

4

18

David Malukas

58.0506

0.1288

0.0477

7

8

58.3007

5

 

6

121.797

10:00.8942

Honda

 

14

Dale Coyne Racing with HMD

5

7

Felix Rosenqvist

58.1465

0.2247

0.0959

8

8

58.1465

4

 

11

121.596

10:45.5807

Chevy

 

6

Arrow McLaren SP

6

10

Alex Palou

58.1497

0.2279

0.0032

8

8

58.1497

4

 

7

121.590

10:04.9157

Honda

 

9

Chip Ganassi Racing

7

77

Callum Ilott

58.1988

0.2770

0.0491

8

8

58.1988

5

 

5

121.487

10:25.1429

Chevy

 

26

Juncos Hollinger Racing

8

9

Scott Dixon

58.2628

0.3410

0.0640

8

8

58.2628

5

 

4

121.354

10:11.7312

Honda

 

8

Chip Ganassi Racing

9

8

Marcus Ericsson

58.3064

0.3846

0.0436

8

9

58.3115

5

 

8

121.263

10:52.8265

Honda

 

7

Chip Ganassi Racing

10

20

Conor Daly

58.4398

0.5180

0.1334

8

8

58.4398

5

 

10

120.986

10:32.1383

Chevy

 

15

Ed Carpenter Racing

11

51

Takuma Sato

58.6058

0.6840

0.1660

8

8

58.6058

5

 

12

120.643

10:22.7849

Honda

 

24

Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR

12

29

Devlin DeFrancesco

58.6127

0.6909

0.0069

8

8

58.6127

5

 

9

120.629

10:15.5827

Honda

 

20

Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport

13

4

Dalton Kellett

59.0082

1.0864

0.3955

8

8

59.0082

5

 

13

119.821

10:29.7159

Chevy

 

3

AJ Foyt Enterprises

 

Q1 Group 1

With cool conditions of only 70deg, even on Firestone primaries the drivers were swiftly down into the low 59secs, Alexander Rossi and Josef Newgarden nailing 59.0s. However, Newgarden then ducked into the pits for reds, while Rossi was setting a 58.961.

Before he could make his switch, Colton Herta hit the Armco barrier at the Turn 1 apex with his right-front wheel.

Newgarden delivered a mighty 58.1605 once he got his reds up to temperature, and then lowered that to 58.0433sec before pitting.

Pato O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet got within one tenth of that benchmark before he pitted, while Rinus VeeKay clocked third ahead of Rossi.

Remarkably, the #26 Andretti Autosport crew got Herta’s right-front fixed so that he was able to leap into fifth, ahead of Graham Rahal’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Honda, and thereby bumping out the still impressive Kyle Kirkwood’s AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet.

P

No

Name

FTime

Diff

Gap

FL

Laps

LapTime

LPit

Led

ST

FSpeed

Elapsed

Engine

Tire

Points

Team

1

2

Josef Newgarden

58.0433

58.0433

0.000

7

7

58.0433

4

 

1

121.813

9:03.3217

Chevy

 

1

Team Penske

2

5

Pato O'Ward

58.1408

0.0975

0.0975

7

8

58.3202

4

 

5

121.608

9:59.1309

Chevy

 

4

Arrow McLaren SP

3

21

Rinus VeeKay

58.2292

0.1859

0.0884

8

8

58.2292

5

 

10

121.424

10:20.7853

Chevy

 

16

Ed Carpenter Racing

4

27

Alexander Rossi

58.2318

0.1885

0.0026

7

8

58.2895

5

 

4

121.418

10:11.3626

Honda

 

18

Andretti Autosport

5

26

Colton Herta

58.3020

0.2587

0.0702

7

7

58.3020

5

 

2

121.272

10:44.2223

Honda

 

17

Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian

6

15

Graham Rahal

58.4106

0.3673

0.1086

8

8

58.4106

5

 

3

121.047

10:24.7370

Honda

 

13

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

7

14

Kyle Kirkwood

58.4865

0.4432

0.0759

8

8

58.4865

4

 

7

120.889

10:31.6046

Chevy

 

12

AJ Foyt Enterprises

8

28

Romain Grosjean

58.5097

0.4664

0.0232

8

8

58.5097

5

 

6

120.842

9:37.5304

Honda

 

19

Andretti Autosport

9

45

Jack Harvey

58.5332

0.4899

0.0235

8

8

58.5332

5

 

9

120.793

10:15.0072

Honda

 

22

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

10

60

Simon Pagenaud

58.6898

0.6465

0.1566

7

8

58.7332

5

 

8

120.471

9:51.5568

Honda

 

25

Meyer Shank Racing

11

06

Helio Castroneves

58.7534

0.7101

0.0636

7

8

58.9194

5

 

11

120.340

10:08.4641

Honda

 

5

Meyer Shank Racing

12

48

Jimmie Johnson

59.1933

1.1500

0.4399

8

8

59.1933

5

 

12

119.446

10:40.8633

Honda

 

23

Chip Ganassi Racing

 

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