NASHVILLE, Tennessee -- Scott McLaughlin won the second pole of his IndyCar career, and Romain Grosjean and Christian Lundgaard earned their highest starting spots of the season in the starting lineup for Sunday’s Music City Grand Prix (3 p.m. ET, NBC).
McLaughlin won the pole on a flying final run around the 11-turn, 2.1-mile course in Saturday’s session, which started 90 minutes late because of weather delays, and a sloppy, shortened first qualifying group left some drivers steaming with anger in the hot, humid Nashville post-rain conditions.
The Team Penske driver was also fastest in Saturday morning practice. The New Zealand native opened the season by winning from the pole in St. Petersburg, Florida, for his first career victory.
INDYCAR AT NASHVILLE: Schedules, details for watching this weekend on NBC
QUALIFYING RESULTS: Click here for the full report from Nashville l Round 1, Group 1 l Round 1, Group 2 l Round 2 l Fast Six
TIRE DESIGNATIONS: Starting lineup with initial choices on compound
“This car was phenomenal,” McLaughlin told NBC Sports’ Kevin Lee of the No. 3 Dallara-Chevrolet. “One of those good laps. Hopefully, more of the same (Sunday). Heads down, bums up and focus on what we need to do.”
Grosjean qualified second for Andretti Autosport, which had three drivers eliminated in the first round of qualifying. Lundgaard was a career-best third for Rahal Letterman Lanigan, which advanced all three of its drivers to the top 12.
Alex Palou, Pato O’Ward and Josef Newgarden rounded out the Fast Six drivers who made the final round of qualifying.
The top five starting spots were represented by five teams: Team Penske, Andretti Autosport, Rahal Letterman Lanigan, Chip Ganassi Racing and Arrow McLaren SP.
RETWEET to congratulate @smclaughlin93!
— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) August 6, 2022
The @Team_Penske driver wins the pole and will lead the field to green in the @MusicCityGP in Nashville. #INDYCAR
Tune in Sunday at 3P ET on @NBC and @peacockTV. pic.twitter.com/8HxadkiE2t
Lundgaard overcame a penalty in the second round and locked a tire in the final round and still managed to qualify third.
The championship contenders had a mixed day with reigning champion Palou, who is ranked sixth in the six-driver fight, the highest qualifier (fourth). O’Ward, who is fifth in the standings, advanced only because IndyCar points leader Will Power was knocked from the Fast Six for impeding O’Ward’s lap when he went off course in the top 12.
The penalty stripped Power of his fastest lap and O’Ward took his spot. Power holds a nine-point lead over defending race winner Marcus Ericsson, and only 52 points separate Power from Palou with Sunday’s race the first of the final four this season.
“We can have a great day tomorrow,” Power said of starting eighth. “Get good strategy, good pit stops and see what we’ve got.”
Josef Newgarden of Penske, who is third in the standings, qualified sixth.
Ericsson and Scott Dixon, fourth in the standings, failed to advance out of the first round. Dixon will start 14th and Ericsson 18th, where he started from in last year’s victory.
“We need to come up with a good strategy and play the race as it comes,” Ericsson told NBC Sports’ Dillon Welch. “It’s been a lot of incidents this weekend again like last year. I think there’s still going to be opportunities. We’ve been struggling all weekend. I haven’t got the feeling in the car that I want. The team did a good job in qualifying to get it more to my liking and felt a step in the right direction.
“We’re just lacking too much speed to the fastest guys. It’s a bit strange. I will say in (the second practice), the car was very consistent to drive. A bit of work tonight, but I’m hoping for a better day tomorrow. I think if there’s anyone in this pit lane that can fight from the back to the front, we’re always strong doing that. We have that confidence.”
Colton Herta crashed in the first group of the first round to bring out a session-ending red flag that ruined multiple drivers’ runs, including teammate Alexander Rossi.
“Little bit too ambitious for what the conditions were. After it rained a lot of that grip kind of fell away, just trying to find the right braking point, and I just overdid it,” Herta told NBC Sports’ Dave Burns. “I apologize to my team, especially to Andretti, because I think I probably screwed over Rossi there pretty good, too. And probably a few other guys.
“I don’t try to do that on purpose, and was really an honest mistake, so I feel bad for everybody involved.”
Here’s another look at what happened to Colton Herta.
— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) August 6, 2022
Herta says it “was a little too ambitious. I just overdid it.” #INDYCAR pic.twitter.com/rb5pEaSCUN
Drivers were seething after the first group because it was so short. Prior to Herta’s spin, Andretti Autosport rookie Devlin DeFrancesco also spun to bring out a yellow that chewed up three of the 10 scheduled minutes in the qualifying group.
It meant most of the drivers eliminated in the round barely had a chance to make a qualifying run.
“Man, I’m so frustrated. That is not the sport, man,” said Simon Pagenaud, who will start 13th. “We can wait all the day for storm to pass, but they don’t give us enough time to put our lap down. It’s just unbelievable. I’m speechless.
“It’s such a shame because you just don’t get to perform at your level. We’re going to start again where we don’t belong. A lot of guys don’t belong up there up front.”
Felix Rosenqvist, who crashed in practice earlier Saturday, felt his lap would have advanced him before it was halted by the Herta crash.
“Just annoying,” Rosenqvist said. “I didn’t even have a lap. We had a kind of warmup lap. That’s something we have to look at, maybe we should have gone straight out and tried to do a lap, but it’s annoying when it’s always red flags and can’t even get the session going.”
The abbreviated session meant that Dalton Kellett advanced out of the first group for the first time in 37 career IndyCar starts. He’ll start a career-high 12th and was embraced by team and family members when he finished the top-12 session.
Here’s the IndyCar starting lineup for Sunday’s Music City Grand Prix on the 11-turn, 2.1-mile street course (qualifying position, car number in parentheses, driver, engine, time, speed):
ROW 1
1. (3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 01:14.5555 (101.401)
2. (28) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 01:14.6975 (101.208)
ROW 2
3. (30) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 01:14.7149 (101.185)
4. (10) Alex Palou, Honda, 01:14.9087 (100.923)
ROW 3
5. (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 01:14.9261 (100.899)
6. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 01:15.1461 (100.604)
ROW 4
7. (18) David Malukas, Honda, 01:14.9616 (100.852)
8. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 01:14.9818 (100.824)
ROW 5
9. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 01:15.3112 (100.383)
10. (21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 01:15.3897 (100.279)
ROW 6
11. (45) Jack Harvey, Honda, 01:15.9758 (99.505)
12. (4) Dalton Kellett, Chevrolet, 01:16.5600 (98.746)
ROW 7
13. (60) Simon Pagenaud, Honda, 01:19.4039 (95.209)
14. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 01:15.3179 (100.375)
ROW 8
15. (7) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 01:21.1784 (93.128)
16. (14) Kyle Kirkwood, Chevrolet, 01:15.4382 (100.214)
ROW 9
17. (27) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 01:21.4579 (92.809)
18. (8) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 01:15.4501 (100.199)
ROW 10
19. (77) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 01:57.6982 (64.232)
20. (51) Takuma Sato, Honda, 01:15.5935 (100.009)
ROW 11
21. (16) Simona De Silvestro, Chevrolet, No Time (No Speed)
22. (20) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 01:16.3955 (98.959)
ROW 12
23. (26) Colton Herta, Honda, No Time (No Speed)
24. (06) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 01:16.5898 (98.708)
ROW 13
25. (29) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, No Time (No Speed)
26. (48) Jimmie Johnson, Honda, 01:17.5888 (97.437)