Detroit GP Race 2 starting lineup: Josef Newgarden on IndyCar pole position

By Jun 13, 2021, 10:30 AM EDT
0 Comments

Josef Newgarden scored his first pole position of the NTT IndyCar Series season, qualifying first Sunday morning in the starting lineup for the Detroit Chevrolet Grand Prix Race 2 at Belle Isle Raceway.

The Team Penske driver turned a 1-minute, 14.1094-second lap around the 14-turn, 2.3-mile street course to capture the 12th pole position of his career and first since Iowa Speedway last July.

“This car has been fast all weekend; we were really fast in the race yesterday,” Newgarden, who started fifth and finished 10th Saturday despite a tire problem, told NBC Sports reporter Marty Snider. “Unfortunately, we got caught a lap down with a small mistake, but these guys were awesome. We worked our way back to a top 10, which is all you can ask for on a day like yesterday. So I was really proud of the resilience of the team.

STARTING LINEUP: Order for Race 2

QUALIFYING: Click here for Detroit GP Race 2 qualifying results | Round 1, Group 1 | Round 1, Group 2 | Round 2

“Great to be here in Detroit. We take this race very seriously.”

The Detroit Grand Prix is operated and promoted by the staff of Roger Penske, who also owns Newgarden’s car as well as the IndyCar Series.

It’s been a rough start to 2021 for Team Penske, which is winless through seven races. It’s been eight years since the team needed eight races to earn its first victory. Will Power, Newgarden’s teammate, nearly broke through Saturday before a mechanical problem during a red flag while leading late in Race 1 ruined his chances.

Power had another tough go Sunday morning, qualifying 20th in an eventful session that ended with Santino Ferrucci smacking the wall just as the second and final round ended.

Oliver Askew, who is substituting for Felix Rosenqvist after a violent crash Saturday sent the Swede to the hospital, turned the slowest lap but will start 23rd of 25 drivers by virtue of being in Group 1.

Borrowing Juan Pablo Montoya’s firesuit and Alex Palou’s shoes, Askew is making his first IndyCar start since the 2020 season finale at St. Petersburg last October. Rosenqvist replaced Askew in the No. 7 Dallara-Chevrolet for 2021.

“Very happy Felix is OK,” Askew told Snider. “We have the best safety crew in racing. Thankfully Felix is going to be all right. Got the callup quite late last night. We were here until 1 a.m. The crew guys probably slept 1 or 2 hours last night getting this car ready so big hats off to them.

“It’s really good to be back in the series. First time in Detroit as well. A track I’ve always wanted to drive, and we’ll get the most out of today for sure. It was interesting. Not as bumpy as everyone was saying. I think the guys did a really good job of making this car compliant over the bumps. Pato (O’Ward) gave me a lot of tips, so did Felix and Robert (Wickens) as well. We did a track walk late last night and couldn’t see much, but it was good.”

QUALIFYING RESULTS FOR CHEVROLET DETROIT GRAND PRIX, RACE 2

1. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 1:14.1094 (114.156 mph)
2. (26) Colton Herta, Honda, 1:14.4300 (113.664)
3. (21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 1:14.8180 (113.074)
4. (10) Alex Palou, Honda, 1:14.8432 (113.036)
5. (51) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 1:14.9060 (112.942)
6. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 1:14.9231 (112.916)
7. (27) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 1:15.3524 (112.272)
8. (20) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 1:15.4162 (112.177)
9. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 1:15.4187 (112.174)
10. (22) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 1:15.5294 (112.009)
11. (18) Ed Jones, Honda, 1:15.9478 (111.392)
12. (45) Santino Ferrucci, Honda, 1:16.1146 (111.148)
13. (14) Sebastien Bourdais, Chevrolet, 1:16.5387 (110.532)
14. (29) James Hinchcliffe, Honda, 1:15.9533 (111.384)
15. (59) Max Chilton, Chevrolet, 1:16.6085 (110.432)
16. (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 1:16.0805 (111.198)
17. (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 1:16.6456 (110.378)
18. (60) Jack Harvey, Honda, 1:16.1356 (111.118)
19. (30) Takuma Sato, Honda, 1:16.8947 (110.021)
20. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 1:16.4386 (110.677)
21. (3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 1:17.1815 (109.612)
22. (8) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 1:16.5514 (110.514)
23. (7) Oliver Askew, Chevrolet, 1:19.1486 (106.888)
24. (4) Dalton Kellett, Chevrolet, 1:16.5805 (110.472)
25. (48) Jimmie Johnson, Honda, 1:17.9838 (108.484)

IndyCar Detroit GP starting lineup: Alex Palou wins first pole position on a street course

By Jun 3, 2023, 4:00 PM EDT
0 Comments

DETROIT — Alex Palou won the pole position for the second consecutive NTT IndyCar Series race and will lead the Detroit Grand Prix starting lineup to green on a new downtown layout.

The 2021 series champion, who finished fourth in the 107th Indy 500 after qualifying first, earned his third career pole position as the first of three Chip Ganassi Racing drivers in the top four (Scott Dixon qualified fourth, and Marcus Ericsson sixth).

Scott McLaughlin will start second, followed by Romain Grosjean. Coming off his first Indianapolis 500 victory, Josef Newgarden qualified fifth.

INDYCAR IN DETROIT: Entry list, schedule, TV info for this weekend

It’s the third career pole position for Palou and his first on a street course — a big advantage on a nine-turn, 1.645-mile track that is expected to be calamitous over 100 laps Sunday (3 p.m. ET, NBC).

“It’s going to be a tough day for sure,” Palou told NBC Sports’ Marty Snider. “It feels good we’ve had a great car since the beginning, and it was just about maximizing. They did a great strategy on tires and everything. We need to finish it (Sunday).

“I got off a lot in practice. We wanted to see where the limit was, and we found it. It’s a crazy track. I think it’s too tight for Indy cars and too short as well, but we’ll make it happen.”

QUALIFYING RESULTS: Click here for Detroit GP qualifying speeds | Round 1, Group 1 | Round 1, Group 2 | Round 2 l Round 3

The narrow quarters (originally listed as a 1.7-mile track, its distance shrunk by a couple hundred feet when measured Friday) already were causing problems in qualifying.

Colton Herta, who has four career poles on street courses, qualified 24th after failing to advance from the first round because of damage to his No. 26 Dallara-Honda. It’s the worst starting spot in an IndyCar street course race for Herta (and the second-worst of his career on the heels of qualifying 25th for the GMR Grand Prix three weeks ago).

Andretti Autosport teammate Kyle Kirkwood also found misfortune in the second round, damaging the left front of his No. 27 Dallara-Honda despite light wall contact.

“I’m disappointed for the crew because that was a pole-winning car,” Kirkwood told NBC Sports’ Kevin Lee. “Man, I barely touched the wall. I touched it way harder in all the practices, and it’s just like the angle at which the wall was right there, it caught the point and just ripped the front off the car.

“If the wall was rounded, that wouldn’t have happened. That’s just unfortunate for the guys, but it’s my mistake. It’s hard enough to get around this place let alone race around it. We’ll see how it goes.”

Many IndyCar drivers are expecting it to go badly, which isn’t uncommon for a new street layout. The inaugural Music City Grand Prix in Nashville, Tennessee, was the biggest crashfest of the 2021 season with 33 of 80 laps run under caution plus two red flags.

It could be worse at Detroit, which is the shortest track on the IndyCar circuit. It also features the series’ only split pit lane (with cars pitting on opposite sides and blending into a single-lane exit), a 0.9-mile straightaway and a hairpin third turn that is considered the best passing zone.

“If there’s one day you need to be lucky in the year, it’s tomorrow,” Grosjean told NBC Sports’ Dave Burns. “A lot is going to happen, and it’s being in the right time at the right place.”

Said Dixon: “Expect probably a lot of unexpected things to happen. We’ll try and get through it. I think it’ll be similar to Nashville and maybe the last man standing is the one who gets the victory.”

With the field at 27 cars, Palou estimated the length of the course leaves a gap of about 2.4 seconds between each car, which he preferred would be double. During practice Friday, there were six red flags and 19 local yellows as teams tried to sort out the tricky and tight layout.

“I don’t know what the perfect distance is, but I would say adding 30 seconds to a track or 20 seconds would help a lot,” said Palou, one of many drivers who also said the streets were too bumpy despite work to grind down some surfaces. “We have a lot of cars. It’s crazy. It’s really good for the series, for the racing. But when it comes to practice, and we have 10 red flags, 25 yellows, it’s traffic all the time.”

It seems certain to be a memorable reimagining of the Detroit GP, which was moved downtown by IndyCar owner Roger Penske after a 30-year run at the Belle Isle course a few miles north.

McLaughlin, who drives for Team Penske, believes the race will be very similar to Nashville, but “it’s just going to be up to us with the etiquette of the drivers to figure it out along the way. I think there’s going to be a lot of passes, opportunities.

“With the track, there’s been a lot of noise I’ve seen on Twitter, from other drivers and stuff,” McLaughlin said. “At the end of the day, this is a new track, new complex. I think what everyone has done to get this going, the vibe is awesome. Belle Isle was getting old. We had to do it.

“First-year problems, it’s always going to happen. It’s just going to get better from here. The racetrack for the drivers is a blast. We don’t even know how it races yet. Everyone is making conclusions already. They probably just need to relax and wait for (Sunday).”

Here’s the IndyCar starting lineup for Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix (qualifying position, car number in parentheses, driver, engine and speed):

ROW 1

1. (10) Alex Palou, Honda, 1 minute, 1.8592 seconds (95.734 mph)
2. (3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 1:02.1592 (95.271)

ROW 2

3. (28) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 1:02.2896 (95.072)
4. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 1:02.4272 (94.862)

ROW 3

5. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 1:02.5223 (94.718)
6. (8) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 1:02.6184 (94.573)

ROW 4

7. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 1:02.1817 (95.237)
8. (60) Simon Pagenaud, Honda, 1:02.1860 (95.230)

ROW 5

9. (6) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 1:02.1937 (95.219)
10. (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 1:02.2564 (95.123)

ROW 6

11. (11) Marcus Armstrong, Honda, 1:02.2958 (95.063)
12. (27) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 1:04.6075 (91.661)

ROW 7

13. (7) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 1:02.5714 (94.644)
14. (21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 1:02.1911 (95.223)

ROW 8

15. (20) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 1:02.9522 (94.071)
16. (77) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 1:02.2644 (95.111)

ROW 9

17. (29) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 1:03.0017 (93.997)
18. (45) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 1:02.6495 (94.526)

ROW 10

19. (55) Benjamin Pedersen, Chevrolet, 1:03.1599 (93.762)
20. (78) Agustin Canapino, Chevrolet, 1:02.9071 (94.139)

ROW 11

21. (18) David Malukas, Honda, 1:03.2126 (93.684)
22. (14) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 1:02.9589 (94.061)

ROW 12

23. (06) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 1:03.3879 (93.425)
24. (26) Colton Herta, Honda, 1:03.4165 (93.383)

ROW 13

25. (30) Jack Harvey, Honda, 1:03.7728 (92.861)
26. (51) Sting Ray Robb, Honda, 1:03.7496 (92.895)

ROW 14

27. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 1:03.8663 (92.725)