Rosberg rockets to United States GP pole in Austin - MotorSportsTalk

Nico Rosberg has stormed to pole position for the 2014 United States Grand Prix after beating teammate Lewis Hamilton when it mattered in the final part of Q3 in Austin today.

Hamilton had dominated practice at the Circuit of The Americas, but fell three-tenths of a second short when it mattered at the end of Q3 after Rosberg produced a stunning lap time of 1:36.067 to claim his ninth pole position of the year.

After a cold morning in Austin, conditions began to warm up as qualifying got underway. Most of the drivers opted to head out in Q1 with the medium compound tire fitted at first, with some of the slower runners opting to immediately take up the pace advantage in the session. This allowed Sergio Perez and Adrian Sutil to move into the top ten early on, but for their fastest laps, all of the drivers were on the option tire.

At the very front of the field, it was business as usual for Mercedes as Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton went P1 and P2 at the halfway stage in Q1. Ultimately, it was Hamilton who won out, finishing six-tenths of a second clear of the field.

Sebastian Vettel will be starting tomorrow’s race from the pit lane, meaning that qualifying was essentially a glorified practice session for the defending world champion. He eventually finished Q1 down in 17th place, having spent the majority of the session sat in the pits.

Jean-Eric Vergne did his hopes of being retained by Toro Rosso little good by qualifying 15th and dropping out in Q1. The Frenchman was joined by his compatriot, Romain Grosjean, and Esteban Gutierrez in the dropzone. Both Pastor Maldonado and Adrian Sutil managed to get through to Q2 with relative ease in spite of their struggles this year.

Mercedes continued to lead the way during the second part of qualifying, with Nico Rosberg setting the early pace despite complaining over oversteer on his car. Hamilton ran him close with his first run, falling two-tenths of a second short due to locking up under braking.

The problem persisted for Hamilton, forcing him to take to the pits and lose his second run. Rosberg managed to find another eighth-tenths of a second though, giving him an advantage of almost one second come the end of the session.

After impressing in Q1, Sutil and Maldonado continued their good form in Q2 to finish 10th and 11th respectively. Although this meant Maldonado did not advance to the final session, he still secured his best qualifying result of the season, finishing ahead of Sergio Perez, Nico Hulkenberg and Daniil Kvyat. With a 10-place grid penalty for an engine change, Kvyat will start the race from the back of the grid.

The final fight for pole position saw Rosberg take the early advantage, going 0.161 seconds faster than Hamilton with his first lap in Q3. The German driver went faster in all three sectors to pull clear of his teammate and put himself on provisional pole, with Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa over half a second adrift in third and fourth place for Williams.

On his final flying lap, Rosberg managed to go fastest of all in each of the three sectors at COTA to pull out another two-tenths of a second on Hamilton, leaving the Briton helpless. He was unable to improve, meaning that he finished some three-tenths of a second adrift of his teammate.

Williams’ strong qualifying form continued in Austin as Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa locked out the second row of the grid in third and fourth place, finishing ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

The McLaren duo of Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen qualified seventh and eighth place respectively, but the former will drop five places on the grid due to a grid penalty. Kimi Raikkonen and Adrian Sutil rounded out the top ten in Austin, with this being the latter’s best qualifying result since the 2013 British Grand Prix.

After a difficult run of form, Nico Rosberg was delighted to secure his ninth pole position of the season in Austin, beating his teammate soundly when it mattered. Hamilton may have enjoyed the advantage in practice, but qualifying was all about Rosberg.

Of course, there are no points awarded on a Saturday though, and the stage is set for a thrilling battle between Rosberg and Hamilton in Austin on Sunday in the United States Grand Prix.

NBC/NBCSN SCHEDULE FROM UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX

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INDIANAPOLIS – Alex Palou had not turned a wheel wrong the entire Month of May at the Indy 500 until Rinus VeeKay turned a wheel into the Chip Ganassi Racing pole-sitter leaving pit road on Lap 94.

“There is nothing I could have done there,” Palou told NBC Sports. “It’s OK, when it is my fault or the team’s fault because everybody makes mistakes. But when there is nothing, you could have done differently there, it feels bad and feels bad for the team.”

Marcus Ericsson was a master at utilizing the “Tail of the Dragon” move that breaks the draft of the car behind him in the closing laps to win last year’s Indianapolis 500. On Sunday, however, the last of three red flags in the final 16 laps of the race had the popular driver from Sweden breathing fire after Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden beat him at his own game on the final lap to win the Indianapolis 500.

Despite the two disappointments, team owner Chip Ganassi was seen on pit road fist-bumping a member on his four-car team in this year’s Indianapolis 500 after his drivers finished second, fourth, sixth and seventh in the tightly contested race.

Those are pretty good results, but at the Indianapolis 500, there is just one winner and 32 losers.

“There is only one winner, but it was a hell of a show,” three-time Indianapolis 500 winner and Chip Ganassi Racing consultant Dario Franchitti told NBC Sports. “Alex was very fast, and he got absolutely caught out in somebody else’s wreck. There was nothing he could have done, but he and the 10 car, great recovery.

“Great recovery by all four cars because at half distance, we were not looking very good.”

After 92 laps, the first caution flew for Sting Ray Robb of Dale Coyne Racing hitting the Turn 1 wall.

During pit stops on Lap 94, Palou had left his stall when the second-place car driven by VeeKay ran into him, putting Palou’s Honda into the wall. The car sustained a damaged front wing, but the Chip Ganassi crew was able to get him back in the race on the lead lap but in 28^th position.

Palou ultimately would fight his way to a fourth-place finish in a race the popular Spaniard could have won. His displeasure with VeeKay, whom he sarcastically called “a legend” on his team radio after the incident, was evident.

“The benefit of being on pole is you can drive straight and avoid crashes, and he was able to crash us on the side on pit lane, which is pretty tough to do, but he managed it,” Palou told NBC Sports. “Hopefully next year we are not beside him. Hopefully, next year we have a little better luck.”

Palou started on the pole and led 36 laps, just three fewer than race leader Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren Racing.

“We started really well, was managing the fuel as we wanted, our car was pretty good,” Palou said. “Our car wasn’t great, we dropped to P4 or P5, but we still had some good stuff.

“On the pit stop, the 21 (VeeKay) managed to clip us. Nothing we could have done there. It was not my team’s fault or my fault.

“We had to drop to the end. I’m happy we made it back to P4. We needed 50 more laps to make it happen, but it could have been a lot worse after that contact.

“I learned a lot, running up front at the beginning and in mid-pack and then the back. I learned a lot.

“It feels amazing when you win it and not so good when things go wrong. We were a bit lucky with so many restarts at the end to make it back to P4 so I’m happy with that.”

Palou said the front wing had to be changed and the toe-in was a bit off, but he still had a fast car.

In fact, his Honda was the best car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway all month. His pole-winning four lap average speed of 234.217 miles per hour around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a record for this fabled race.

Palou looked good throughout the race, before he had to scratch and claw and race his way back to the top-five after he restarted 28^th.

In the Indianapolis 500, however, the best car doesn’t always win.

“It’s two years in a row that we were leading the race at the beginning and had to drop to last,” Palou said. “Maybe next year, we will start in the middle of the field and go on to win the race.

“I know he didn’t do it on purpose. It’s better to let that pass someday.”

Palou said the wild racing at the end was because the downforce package used in Sunday’s race means the drivers have to be aggressive. The front two cars can battle for the victory, but cars back in fourth or fifth place can’t help determine the outcome of the race.

That is when the “Tail of the Dragon” comes into the play.

Franchitti helped celebrate Ericsson’s win in 2022 with his “Tail of the Dragon” zigzag move – something he never had to do in any of his three Indianapolis 500 victories because they all finished under caution.

In 2023, however, IndyCar Race Control wants to make every attempt to finish the race under green, without going past the scheduled distance like NASCAR’s overtime rule.

Instead of extra laps, they stop the race with a red flag, to create a potential green-flag finish condition.

“You do what you have to do to win within the rules, and it’s within the rules, so you do it,” Franchitti said. “The race is 200 laps and there is a balance.

“Marcus did a great job on that restart and so did Josef. It was just the timing of who was where and that was it.

“If you knew it was going to go red, you would have hung back on the lap before.

“Brilliant job by the whole Ganassi organization because it wasn’t looking very good at half-distance.

“Full marks to Josef Newgarden and Team Penske.”

Franchitti is highly impressed by how well Ericsson works with CGR engineer Brad Goldberg and how close this combination came to winning the Indianapolis 500 two-years-in-a-row.

It would have been the first back-to-back Indy 500 winner since Helio Castroneves in 2001 and 2002.

“Oh, he’s a badass,” Franchitti said Ericsson. “He proved it last year. He is so calm all day. What more do you need? As a driver, he’s fast and so calm.”

Ericsson is typically in good spirits and jovial.

He was stern and direct on pit road after the race.

“I did everything right, I did an awesome restart, caught Josef off-guard and pulled away,” Ericsson said on pit lane. “It’s hard to pull away a full lap and he got me back.

“I’m mostly disappointed with the way he ended. I don’t think it was fair and safe to do that restart straight out of the pits on cold tires for everyone.

“To me, it was not a good way to end that race.

“Congrats to Josef. He didn’t do anything wrong. He is a worthy champion, but it shouldn’t have ended like that.”

Palou also didn’t understand the last restart, which was a one-start showdown.

“I know that we want to finish under green,” Palou said. “Maybe the last restart I did, I didn’t understand. It didn’t benefit the CGR team.

“I’m not very supportive of the last one, but anyway.”

Dixon called the red flags “a bit sketchy.”

“The Red Flags have become a theme to the end of the race, but sometimes they can catch you out,” Dixon said. “I know Marcus is frustrated with it.

“All we ask for is consistency. I think they will do better next time.

“It’s a tough race. People will do anything they can to win it and with how these reds fall, you have to be in the right place at the right time. The problem is when they throw a Red or don’t throw a Red dictates how the race will end.

“It’s a bloody hard race to win. Congrats to Josef Newgarden and to Team Penske.”

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500