Newgarden beats Herta to Mid-Ohio pole by 0.0031sec!

Firestone Fast Six

Newgarden lapped the 2.238-mile course in 66.6739sec, an average speed of 121.919mph, to shade Herta by just 0.0031sec. These two appeared to be in a league of their own, as Will Power slipped up on what should have been his best lap in the Fast Six, so that his ‘banker’ lap ended up as his fastest.

That allowed Marcus Ericsson of Chip Ganassi Racing to edge ahead of him and into third place.

Ericsson’s teammate Scott Dixon, a six-time Mid-Ohio winner, finished sixth, ahead of the second fastest Andretti Autosport-Honda of Alexander Rossi.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	4	1'06.673		121.919
2	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	4	1'06.677	0.003	121.913
3	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	3	1'07.072	0.398	121.195
4	Will Power	Team Penske	4	1'07.116	0.442	121.115
5	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	4	1'07.135	0.461	121.080
6	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	4	1'07.218	0.544	120.932
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Q2

Alex Palou, Marcus Ericssson and Scott Dixon all took their Chip Ganassi Racing-Hondas out straight away on scrubbed reds at the start of the session and each took turns at the top before pitting for fresh reds, as did the cars who laid down their banker laps using Firestone’s harder primaries.

Sebastien Bourdais incurred a drive-through penalty for exceeding the pitlane speed limit in the AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet which ruined his chances.

Josef Newgarden, Colton Herta, Will Power and Alexander Rossi were the class of the field, covered by a single-tenth of a second, while a late surge from Dixon and Ericsson knocked their championship leading teammate Palou out of the top six.

Graham Rahal beat two of the Andretti Autosport cars that had moved on from Group 2, but he still didn’t quite advance to the shootout for pole, and will roll off from eighth on the grid.

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'06.163		122.860
2	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	1'06.203	0.040	122.786
3	Will Power	Team Penske	1'06.238	0.075	122.720
4	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'06.245	0.082	122.708
5	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.277	0.114	122.648
6	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.449	0.286	122.330
7	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.488	0.325	122.259
8	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'06.594	0.431	122.064
9	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	1'06.613	0.450	122.030
10	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'06.751	0.588	121.777
11	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'06.767	0.604	121.749
12	Sébastien Bourdais	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'06.923	0.760	121.465
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Q1 Group 2

Colton Herta topped the times with 66.2685sec, ahead of the Ganassi cars of Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson, while Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe made sure all four Andretti Autosport-Hondas were through to the Group 2. Sixth was the brave Rinus VeeKay, making his return to IndyCar with eight pins in his clavicle following his biking accident.

Scott McLaughlin missed out on graduating by 0.0063sec, Romain Grosjean also failed to advance, but the shocker was this morning’s practice leader Pato O’Ward failing to advance, down in 10^th, 0.6sec off the top spot. The title contender was 0.6sec off the ultimate pace, saying that his car was changing from tire set to tire set, but also admitted he didn’t drive that well.

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	1'06.268		122.665
2	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.323	0.054	122.563
3	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.458	0.190	122.314
4	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1'06.596	0.327	122.061
5	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	1'06.715	0.447	121.843
6	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'06.725	0.456	121.825
7	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	1'06.731	0.462	121.814
8	Ed Jones	Dale Coyne Racing	1'06.788	0.519	121.710
9	Romain Grosjean	Dale Coyne Racing	1'06.864	0.595	121.572
10	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	1'06.867	0.599	121.565
11	Santino Ferrucci	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'06.925	0.656	121.461
12	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'07.070	0.801	121.198
13	Ryan Norman	Dale Coyne Racing	1'07.471	1.202	120.478
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Q1 Group 1

Will Power suffered an electrical failure during his out-lap, and had to pit immediately for a new ECU. Other teams wasted little time in pitting for their reds and returned to the track. Power got out with only 3min20sec remaining, and of course had to use reds immediately. He looked like he inadvertently got in the way of Felix Rosenqvist’s Arrow McLaren SP-Chevy, but no action was taken.

Jack Harvey stopped his Meyer Shank Racing-Honda just beyond the checkered flag and while Alexander Rossi responded by burping the throttle a little and winding up eighth, Simon Pagenaud apparently didn’t and bumped his way into third. Rob Edwards, Rossi’s strategist then argued the case with Race Control that Rossi should be in, because not only should Harvey be penalized for causing the yellow, Pagenaud should lose his best time for not slowing.

In fact, IndyCar did penalize Harvey, Pagenaud and Rossi, all losing their best times – but Rossi’s second best time was enough to get him through in sixth.

So moving on were Josef Newgarden, Alex Palou, Power, Graham Rahal, Sebastien Bourdais and Rossi.

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'06.016		123.132
2	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'06.513	0.496	122.214
3	Will Power	Team Penske	1'06.542	0.525	122.160
4	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'06.560	0.543	122.127
5	Sébastien Bourdais	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'06.611	0.594	122.033
6	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	1'06.645	0.628	121.971
7	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	1'06.789	0.773	121.707
8	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	1'06.843	0.826	121.609
9	Max Chilton	Carlin	1'06.847	0.830	121.603
10	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'07.095	1.078	121.153
11	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'07.586	1.569	120.272
12	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	1'07.674	1.657	120.117
13	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'08.407	2.390	118.829
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