St Pete IndyCar: McLaughlin beats Power, Herta to take first pole

Firestone Fast Six

Andretti Autosport’s Romain Grosjean was the first driver to duck below the 60sec mark in the final segment of qualifying, as all six drivers took to the track on reds.

Herta then hit the top with a 59.7104 which was eclipsed by Will Power delivering a 59.6847sec lap and then improving to a 59.6058sec. But the nine-time St. Pete polesitter had gotten sideways in Turn 9 on his best lap, and that opened the door for his teammate. An error-free lap from McLaughlin saw him beat Power by 0.1237sec to clock a 59.4821sec, an average of 108.940mph around the 1.8-mile course, in his first race with race engineer Ben Bretzman.

Rinus VeeKay ensured three Chevrolets in the top four with a 59.8102sec, the Ed Carpenter Racing driver beating Grosjean and Simon Pagenaud’s Meyer Shank Racing-Honda.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	3	59.482		108.940
2	Will Power	Team Penske	4	59.605	0.123	108.714
3	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	4	59.710	0.228	108.524
4	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	4	59.810	0.328	108.343
5	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	4	59.811	0.329	108.340
6	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	3	1'00.204	0.722	107.634
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Q2

Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson elected to take Firestone’s softer ‘reds’ right from the start of the Q2 segment, although Herta and eclipsed them even on primaries.

Will Power would land the fastest primary lap, however, with a 60.0727sec, before pitting for a set of alternates. He then got his time down to 59.3466 to top the segment by just 0.0585sec ahead of Colton Herta, with Scott McLaughlin a brilliant third.

Also advancing to the Firestone Fast Six were Romain Grosjean, Simon Pagenaud, with Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing.

The Ganassi cars faltered at this stage but were still much stronger than in yesterday’s practice, Scott Dixon, Marcus Ericsson and Alex Palou finishing up seventh, eighth and 10^th respectively. Dixon admitted he’d clipped the wall on Turn 9 entry while on primaries and then mis-timed his flyers on the stickier-for-2022 ‘red’ Firestones.

Surprisingly eliminated at this stage was Penske’s Josef Newgarden, a two-time St. Pete winner, telling NBC he was fighting a couple of issues and had also been struggling with traffic.

Kyle Kirkwood was kicking himself at making a mistake at the final corner at the start of his flying lap, and he confessed he then pushed too hard in the AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet and brushed the Turn 9 exit wall, but was reasonably satisfied to wind up as fastest rookie.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Will Power	Team Penske	7	59.346		109.189
2	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	6	59.405	0.058	109.082
3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	7	59.515	0.169	108.879
4	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	6	59.555	0.209	108.805
5	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	7	59.588	0.241	108.747
6	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	8	59.623	0.276	108.683
7	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	59.757	0.411	108.438
8	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	8	59.824	0.477	108.318
9	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	7	59.886	0.539	108.205
10	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	59.958	0.611	108.075
11	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	8	59.987	0.640	108.023
12	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	6	1'00.261	0.915	107.531
View full results

Q1 G2

Will Power was the fastest driver on primary tires in Group 2, with a promising 60.1685sec, 0.1239sec ahead of former teammate Simon Pagenaud, now at Meyer Shank Racing-Honda.

Onto alternate Firestones, Alex Palou showed the same improved Ganassi form as teammate Dixon in Group 1, despite the reigning champion suffering a nasty shunt this morning. Right at the end of the session, Marcus Ericsson confirmed Ganassi’s progress by pushing Palou down to sixth.

Up front, Power led this morning’s pacesetter Scott McLaughlin in a Penske 1-2 with a 59.3929sec, while third was Romain Grosjean in his repaired Andretti Autosport-Honda, with compatriot Pagenaud taking fourth.

Dalton Kellett didn’t progress, but was a nonetheless impressive seventh, ahead of Pato O’Ward who bent his left-rear toe-link on the wall at Turn 9.

Jimmie Johnson was last but had his best lap impeded by rookie David Malukas in the Dale Coyne Racing-Honda, the youngster getting penalized as a result.

Q1 G1

On harder primary tires, the fastest lap came from Colton Herta, turning a 60.3955sec, a quarter second faster than Rinus VeeKay in his Ed Carpenter Racing-Chevrolet.

On reds, Jack Harvey came out with his repaired car and went second fastest, before Alexander Rossi and then VeeKay ducked under the 60sec barrier.

Next driver to do that was Kyle Kirkwood of AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet, but his time was quickly shaded to the tune of 0.38sec by Herta’s first flyer on reds a 59.4662sec. Graham Rahal and VeeKay trimmed that margin, and Scott Dixon revived Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda’s hopes by vaulting into fourth, but Kirkwood remained in the top six, just ahead of Josef Newgarden’s Team Penske-Chevrolet.

A puzzled Alexander Rossi was a surprise failure to graduate into Q2, as was Helio Castroneves of Meyer Shank Racing.