Detroit IndyCar: O’Ward beats Rossi, Grosjean to Race 1 pole

The Detroit GP traditionally has a different qualifying system than the other road/street courses, but this year it was brought much closer in line with the regular system. The 25 cars were divided into groups of 12 and 13 in qualifying, with the top six from each going forward into a top 12 fight for pole. The difference there was no Q3 Firestone Fast Six shootout.

As the drivers discovered yesterday, the softer Firestone compounds, the red-sidewalled tires, were taking a long while to get up to operating temperature around the 2.35-mile course, so many drivers cut short their ‘banker’ laps on the primary compound, to work the reds for longer.

That didn’t explain Andretti Autosport-Honda’s two-time Detroit polesitter Alexander Rossi laying down a startling 1min15.8507sec in Group 1 to beat the rest of his rivals field – led by Dale Coyne Racing with RWR’s Romain Grosjean – by an incredible 0.82sec. The tire behavior did explain why Will Power only scraped through with his second flyer on reds.

The biggest surprise was Chip Ganassi Racing’s championship leader Alex Palou finishing 10^th. His misery was multiplied, knowing that he was being penalized a further six places for his early engine change at the Indy 500.

Rossi’s laptime was put in perspective when Group 2 ran, as Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Josef Newgarden beat it, while Colton Herta (Andretti) and Ed Jones (Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan-Honda) matched it.

None of the three Rahal Letterman Lanigan-Hondas made it through, and neither did rookie Scott McLaughlin, who crashed on his sixth lap in yesterday’s practice session, and therefore is still learning the track.

Ganassi’s Jimmie Johnson made a notable stride overnight, knocking more than two seconds off his deficit to the fastest in his session, to finish up 3.2sec down.

It was therefore no surprise to see Newgarden, Scott Dixon and Pato O’Ward go straight out on reds. The times tumbled, with Grosjean, O’Ward, Rossi and Jones all taking turns at the top, until Pato O’Ward nailed his second pole of the season with a scintillating 1min15.5776sec lap, an average of 111.938mph.

That was a mere 0.08sec faster than Rossi, while Grosjean was by far the quickest rookie in third, ahead of Jones.

Josef Newgarden was top Penske driver in fifth, although Power was tracking to be 0.18sec faster than O’Ward but clipped a wall with his left-rear. At the next corner, a right-hander, the rears locked and he grazed a tire wall, ending his bid with seventh, behind Colton Herta.

Ryan Hunter-Reay, who won here in 2018, took eighth, half a second ahead of Pagenaud, while former Detroit winners Sebastien Bourdais and Scott Dixon beat Rinus VeeKay, who has never raced here before.

The first race of the Detroit double-header begins at 2pm local (Eastern) time today.

Segment 1, Group 2

Segment 1, Group 1