Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

USA
Qualifying report

Gateway IndyCar: Newgarden scores pole, Rossi struggles

Josef Newgarden took his eighth career IndyCar pole and his second of the season at World Wide Technology Raceway, while his closest title rival Alexander Rossi will be starting Saturday night’s race from the inside of the sixth row.

Pole award winner Josef Newgarden, Team Penske Chevrolet

Pole award winner Josef Newgarden, Team Penske Chevrolet

Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Team Penske-Chevrolet’s 2017 champion – and 2017 winner here at Gateway – set a two-lap average of 186.508mph to beat Sebastien Bourdais of Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan by just under 0.6mph, which equates to 0.15sec around the 1.25-mile oval.

Several drivers were annoyed by the speedy-dry cement which had been thrown down in Turns 1 and 2 to soak up oil from the vintage Indy cars that had been lapping in the previous hour. But both Bourdais and Coyne teammate Santino Ferrucci appeared largely untroubled, the rookie backing up Bourdais’ performance with sixth on the grid.

Will Power, defending Gateway winner, and Simon Pagenaud will start the race from the second row, while Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda’s Takuma Sato clocked fifth- fastest.

Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ James Hinchcliffe bounced back from a poor practice session, admitting he used rookie teammate Marcus Ericsson’s setup to land a strong P7.

Scott Dixon felt his Chip Ganassi Racing setup took too long to work his tires up to temperature and was disappointed with eighth, two spots ahead of rookie teammate Felix Rosenqvist.

The pair were separated by the fastest of the Andretti Autosport-Honda drivers, Ryan Hunter-Reay, but Rossi, now 36 points behind Newgarden after the Pocono shunt last week, will start only 11th, alongside semi-teammate Colton Herta.

Graham Rahal had a wild moment on the cement dust and had to back off, which explains why he is down in 16th, while Marco Andretti had an even worse moment, forcing him to back off the throttle to keep his car off the Turn 2 wall, and so will have to start at the back.

Qualifying results:

Cla # Driver Team Time Gap Mph
1 2 United States Josef Newgarden
United States Team Penske 48.2554 186.508
2 18 France Sébastien Bourdais
United States Dale Coyne Racing 48.4062 0.1508 185.927
3 12 Australia Will Power
United States Team Penske 48.4142 0.1588 185.896
4 22 France Simon Pagenaud
United States Team Penske 48.6110 0.3556 185.143
5 30 Japan Takuma Sato
United States Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 48.6356 0.3802 185.050
6 19 United States Santino Ferrucci
United States Dale Coyne Racing 48.6934 0.4380 184.830
7 5 Canada James Hinchcliffe
United States Schmidt Peterson Motorsports 48.7931 0.5377 184.452
8 9 New Zealand Scott Dixon
United States Chip Ganassi Racing 48.8354 0.580 184.293
9 28 United States Ryan Hunter-Reay
United States Andretti Autosport 48.8584 0.6030 184.206
10 10 Sweden Felix Rosenqvist
United States Chip Ganassi Racing 48.8785 0.6231 184.130
11 27 United States Alexander Rossi
United States Andretti Autosport 48.8945 0.6391 184.070
12 88 United States Colton Herta
United States Harding Racing 49.0732 0.8178 183.399
13 21 United States Spencer Pigot
United States Ed Carpenter Racing 49.1236 0.8682 183.211
14 7 Sweden Marcus Ericsson
United States Schmidt Peterson Motorsports 49.1319 0.8765 183.180
15 26 United States Zach Veach
United States Andretti Autosport 49.3025 1.0471 182.547
16 15 United States Graham Rahal
United States Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 49.4328 1.1774 182.065
17 20 United States Ed Carpenter
United States Ed Carpenter Racing 49.6321 1.3767 181.334
18 59 United States Conor Daly
United Kingdom Carlin 50.1674 1.9120 179.399
19 23 United States Charlie Kimball
United Kingdom Carlin 50.2844 2.0290 178.982
20 14 Brazil Tony Kanaan
United States A.J. Foyt Enterprises 50.2866 2.0312 178.974
21 4 Brazil Matheus Leist
United States A.J. Foyt Enterprises 50.4795 2.2241 178.290
22 98 United States Marco Andretti
United States Andretti Autosport 51.3722 3.1168 175.192

Be part of Motorsport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Gateway IndyCar: Rookies star in opening practice
Next article Gateway IndyCar: Daly tops evening practice, Kimball crashes

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

USA