Colton Herta wins IndyCar pole at St. Pete as stars struggle

Colton Herta will start from the NTT IndyCar Series pole position Sunday for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, rebounding from a dismal result in the season opener.

The Andretti Autosport driver turned a lap of 1 minute, 0.3210 seconds in the No. 26 Dallara-Honda on the 14-turn, 1.8-mile street course in downtown St. Petersburg, narrowly besting the No. 60 of Jack Harvey (whose Meyer Shank Racing has a technical alliance with Andretti).

The Team Penske Chevrolets of Josef Newgarden and Simon Pagenaud will form the second row. Newgarden had been fastest in practice Friday and Saturday morning in St. Pete after triggering a six-car crash last Sunday on the first lap of the 2021 season at Barber Motorsports Park.

QUALIFYING RESULTS: Full field rundown

GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETE: Details and how to watch Sunday on NBC

Herta, 21, was among those inadvertently collected in the spin by Newgarden, which made his first pole this season and the fifth of his career a nice confidence booster.

“I knew we had a good race car for here and really good qualifying pace from last year,” said Herta, whose previous best start at St. Pete was a third last October. “Just had to get through those first two stages nice and clean.

Congratulations to the NTT P1 award winner, @ColtonHerta!#INDYCAR // #FirestoneGP pic.twitter.com/2XZKUU2Qjz

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) April 24, 2021

“Car was so good today. Everyone did a phenomenal job all weekend up until this point. Really happy for the guys and hopefully we have a great race tomorrow.”

It’s the fourth pole position at St. Pete for Andretti but the first since Tony Kanaan in 2008.

Sebastien Bourdais, a two-time winner at St. Pete, qualified fifth at his hometown track, and Pato O’Ward, the pole-sitter at Barber, was last among the Fast Six cars have trying to squeeze speed solely out of the Firestone black compound while the top five starters used the softer red tire.

“We had a quick car in qualifying, but we just didn’t make quite the right call on either using reds or new blacks,” O’Ward said. “The track was very different to what we felt in Practice 2, but we have a quick race car. We are going to be thinking about it tonight, and we are going to go get it tomorrow.”

Reaffirming how deep the 24-driver field is this season, some big names will be starting midpack or worse. The biggest stunner was Will Power, who already had made news Saturday with a contract extension reported by NBC Sports’ Marty Snider.

*Will Power will start a career-worst 20th for the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, where he has eight poles and nine front row starts in the past 11 years (Joe/Skibinski/IndyCar).*

Near the end of the second group in first-round qualifying, Power brushed the wall and suffered minor suspension damage that caused him to spin.

“I was up a little and tried to get a good exit, touched the wall, and it bent that toe,” Power, who was runner-up at Barber, told Snider. “So I tried to finish it, but too much, too bent. Yeah, unfortunate, man. It’s nuts to go from one of the best cars Friday to the worst car today. Unbelievable.”

Power, a nine-time pole-sitter at St. Pete, failed to advance from Group 1 for the first time since the July 2019 race weekend at Toronto. It’s the first time he was knocked out before the Fast Six in 13 races at St. Pete.

It will be the worst starting spot at St. Pete since a sixth in 2009 for Power, who had qualified on the front row in 10 of the past 12 races on the course. He later said “the aim for (Sunday) will be a top 10.”

Six-time defending series champion Scott Dixon (eighth) and title contender Alexander Rossi (11th) fared slightly better but still advanced only to the second round.

“It was definitely a pretty chaotic Round 1,” said Dixon, who was third at Barber. “Just barely scraped through there. Just really struggled with the entry. Which we’ve never had any problems through all the practices. Obviously the wind’s a lot higher, and track temps are up a lot between sessions there as well. Kind of caught me out for sure.

“On the Q2 there, Harvey came out in front of us and had to wave off Lap 2. Then we’re missing by a few hundredths. It’s a bit of a shame, but we’ll keep working on it. It’s not as easy as what it was last weekend at Barber, but we’ll keep working on it tonight. I know our race car was good last year, and we’ll probably revert to some of that stuff.”

Dixon’s new teammate Alex Palou, who became a first-time winner in IndyCar at Barber in his Chip Ganassi Racing debut, qualified 10th Saturday.

Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson qualified 23rd of 24 drivers in his IndyCar street course debut, avoiding starting in last for the second consecutive race by outqualifying Dalton Kellett.

Johnson said he picked up a second from practice on his best qualifying lap but struggled during the mad scramble to get a clean lap on the tight 14-turn layout.

“Trying to find a gap was much more difficult than I anticipated, and I really only got one good lap out of the two outings I made,” Johnson said. “It was just really kind of a mess out there. A second faster than what I did in practice. Big step for me, and I’m just chipping away at it.”

My fun meter is at 11. pic.twitter.com/A6xykSYK5y

— Jimmie Johnson (@JimmieJohnson) April 24, 2021

QUALIFYING RESULTS FOR GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSURG

1. (26) Colton Herta, Honda, 01:00.3210 (107.425 mph)
2. (60) Jack Harvey, Honda, 01:00.5709 (106.982)
3. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 01:00.6078 (106.917)
4. (22) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 01:00.6353 (106.868)
5. (14) Sebastien Bourdais, Chevrolet, 01:01.0017 (106.227)
6. (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 01:01.0799 (106.091)
7. (21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 01:00.4858 (107.133)
8. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 01:00.4997 (107.108)
9. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 01:00.5678 (106.988)
10. (10) Alex Palou, Honda, 01:00.6220 (106.892)
11. (27) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 01:00.6476 (106.847)
12. (29) James Hinchcliffe, Honda, 01:00.8671 (106.461)
13. (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 01:00.8524 (106.487)
14. (3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 01:00.7044 (106.747)
15. (30) Takuma Sato, Honda, 01:00.9167 (106.375)
16. (8) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 01:00.7058 (106.744)
17. (7) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 01:00.9569 (106.305)
18. (51) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 01:00.8127 (106.557)
19. (20) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 01:01.4220 (105.500)
20. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 01:01.1140 (106.031)
21. (18) Ed Jones, Honda, 01:01.4453 (105.460)
22. (59) Max Chilton, Chevrolet, 01:01.5065 (105.355)
23. (48) Jimmie Johnson, Honda, 01:01.8364 (104.793)
24. (4) Dalton Kellett, Chevrolet, 01:02.3396 (103.947)

QUALIFYING RESULTS: Click here for the full rundown

ROUND BY ROUND: Group 1 l Group 2 l Round 2 l Fast Six

For the second consecutive week, Jett Lawrence had perfect results in the Pro Motocross round at Hangtown in Rancho Cordova, California with a pair of moto wins and the overall victory, only this time he didn’t have Chase Sexton, who sat out the round with a concussion, to keep him honest in the second race.

*Jett Lawrence’s performance in the first two Motocross rounds has him thinking of a rookie championship. – Align Media*

Lawrence led all 16 laps of both races after taking the holeshot in the second moto and grabbing the lead from Dylan Ferrandis in Turn 2 of Moto 1. Lawrence claimed a four-second lead in Moto 1 and five seconds in Moto 2, but as dominant as it seems on paper, there were some exciting moments during the weekend. In the second race, Lawrence wanted to build an advantage that would allow him to maintain his pace and he nearly high-sided a couple of times in heavy ruts.

RESULTS: Click here for full 450 Results; Click here for 250 Results

In his second race back from a concussion, Ferrandis finished in the runner-up spot with a second in Moto 1 and a third in Moto 2. While his finish of second overall goes into the record books, Pro Motocross points are rewarded for each individual race and that meant Ferrandis lost eight points in championship battle to Lawrence. With Sexton failing to mount up for the race, Ferrandis advanced to second in the standings with an 18-point gap to Lawrence. Equally important, Ferrandis gained ground in the SuperMotocross World Championship (WSX) points and now has a gap of 44 over 21st-place Justin Starling.

Cooper Webb is also in his second round since returning from a Supercross injury suffered in Nashville at the end of their season. Claiming results of fourth and second in the two races, Webb earned 40 SuperMotocross points at Hangtown and closed in on Sexton in the WSX battle. Sexton entered Hangtown with a large enough lead that he could not be overtaken, but he is now only 38 points up and could face a difficult decision next week at Thunder Valley in Lakewood, Colorado if he wants to hold onto his lead.

Aaron Plessinger had an adventurous weekend in which he seemed to close on Lawrence in his second race before crashing and dropping to fourth. Coupled with a fifth-place finish in Moto 1, he earned 35 points and was credited with fourth overall.

Cashing in on confidence he gained in the final rounds of the Supercross season, Adam Cianciarulo earned his first top-five of the Pro Motocross championship after narrowly missing out last week with a sixth. He earned the distinction with consistent results of fifth in Moto 1 and fourth in Moto 2.

Click here for 450 Overall results | Rider Points | Manufacturer Points

*Hunter Lawrence showed his back to the competition at Hangtown, just as he did the week prior at Fox Raceway. – Align Media*

The Lawrence brothers made history last week as the first siblings to win in two Pro Motocross divisions on the same day. Fans should get accustomed to seeing this happen with some regularity as Hunter Lawrence posted identical results in Hangtown to those he had at Fox Raceway in the season opener.

In both races, Lawrence got off to a slow start in Moto 1 and had to claw his way back to the podium. He dominated Moto 2 in both rounds to earn the overall victories.

Justin Cooper did not allow Lawrence to gain much of an advantage in the Motocross points’ standings, however. Finishing second in both motos, the earned only one point less than Lawrence. His modest showing in Round 1 of the outdoor season has him 12 points out of first in the championship standings.

Haiden Deegan scored his first moto win in just his fourth start in the series. In the first race of the day, he had to withstand constant pressure from Cooper, but when his teammate closed in on him, Deegan reached down and found a little more speed. Now that he’s won one of these races, he has his sight set on challenging Lawrence for the title. Deegan is second in the Pro Motocross championship standings with a 10-point deficit to the leader.

*Haiden Deegan scored podiums in both Motocross rounds of 2023. – Align Media*

Tom Vialle tied his career-best finish of fourth overall with a seventh-place finish in Moto 1 and a third in Moto 2. Vialle was fourth last week in overall ranking and has one fourth-place finish in the Supercross series that came in the Triple Crown format at Arlington.

Click here for 250 Overall results | Rider Points | Manufacturer Points

RJ Hampshire rounded out the top five with a pair of fifth-place results and 32 points for the round. Even though the deficit is a whopping 61 points, Hampshire climbed to second in the SuperMotocross championship standings now that Jett Lawrence has moved to the big bikes.

Jalek Swoll struggled last week and finished 21st overall at Fox Raceway. This week, he finished on the cusp of 10th in both races with a ninth in Moto 1 and 11th in Moto 2. In the SuperMotocross standings, he has a lot of ground to make up. He currently sits 49th on the chart with a 70-point gap to Chance Hymas, who is on the bubble to earn a guaranteed position in the SMX Mains for the three playoff races that will be held on September.

2023 Motocross Results

Round 1: Jett Lawrence, Hunter Lawrence win

2023 Supercross Results

Round 17: Chase Sexton, Jett Lawrence win
Round 16: Chase Sexton, RJ Hampshire win
Round 15: Chase Sexton, Hunter Lawrence win
Round 14: Justin Barcia, Max Anstie win
Round 13: Chase Sexton, Hunter Lawrence win
Round 12: Eli Tomac, Jett Lawrence win
Round 11: Eli Tomac bounces back with sixth win
Round 10: Chace Sexton wins, penalized
Round 9: Ken Roczen wins
Round 8: Eli Tomac wins 7th Daytona
Round 7: Cooper Webb wins second race
Race 6: Eli Tomac, Jett Lawrence win
Race 5: Webb, Hunter Lawrence win
Race 4: Eli Tomac, Hunter Lawrence win
Race 3: Chase Sexton, Levi Kitchen win
Race 2: Eli Tomac, Jett Lawrence win
Round 1: Eli Tomac, Jett Lawrence win