Almost all drivers remained on Firestone’s harder primaries throughout a very busy 30-minute session, suggesting the teams are expecting the alternate tires to have a huge advantage come the race, and therefore had no wish to unnecessarily take life out of the softer rubber before the race begins.
Newgarden lapped in an impressive 70.9281sec despite using the hard compound an average of 123.793mph around the 2.439-mile road course.
The exception to the primary-only policy was AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy, who sent both Kyle Kirkwood and Dalton Kellett out on reds for a couple of laps at the end of the session, allowing Kirkwood to jump to second fastest, just 0.0614sec behind Newgarden, and 0.042 ahead of Christian Lundgaard of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda. This is a special track for Lundgaard, as it is where he made his IndyCar race debut with RLL last summer, shocking everyone by qualifying fourth. He will roll off sixth for this afternoon’s race.
Andretti Autosport-Honda pairing Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta were fourth and fifth fastest ahead of Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Callum Ilott, the fastest of the Ganassi drivers (in this session and qualifying) Alex Palou, polesitter Felix Rosenqvist of Arrow McLaren SP-Chevrolet.
Five-time IMS road course winner Will Power, who will start fourth today, was ninth ahead of longtime rival Scott Dixon, who will have to claw his way up from 20th this afternoon.
The 85-lap Gallagher Grand Prix will get the green flag at 12.30pm local (Eastern) time.
P | Name | FTime | Diff | FL | Laps | FSpeed | Engine | Tire | Team |
1 | Josef Newgarden | 1:10.9281 | - | 12 | 15 | 123.793 | Chevy | P | Team Penske |
2 | Kyle Kirkwood | 1:10.9895 | 0.0614 | 16 | 18 | 123.686 | Chevy | A | AJ Foyt Enterprises |
3 | Christian Lundgaard | 1:11.0317 | 0.1036 | 14 | 21 | 123.612 | Honda | P | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing |
4 | Alexander Rossi | 1:11.0529 | 0.1248 | 11 | 19 | 123.576 | Honda | P | Andretti Autosport |
5 | Colton Herta | 1:11.0530 | 0.1249 | 13 | 18 | 123.575 | Honda | P | Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian |
6 | Callum Ilott | 1:11.0661 | 0.1380 | 12 | 18 | 123.553 | Chevy | P | Juncos Hollinger Racing |
7 | Alex Palou | 1:11.0759 | 0.1478 | 9 | 20 | 123.536 | Honda | P | Chip Ganassi Racing |
8 | Felix Rosenqvist | 1:11.0929 | 0.1648 | 13 | 20 | 123.506 | Chevy | P | Arrow McLaren SP |
9 | Will Power | 1:11.0969 | 0.1688 | 9 | 22 | 123.499 | Chevy | P | Team Penske |
10 | Scott Dixon | 1:11.0981 | 0.1700 | 14 | 19 | 123.497 | Honda | P | Chip Ganassi Racing |
11 | Marcus Ericsson | 1:11.1238 | 0.1957 | 17 | 17 | 123.452 | Honda | P | Chip Ganassi Racing |
12 | Rinus VeeKay | 1:11.2613 | 0.3332 | 6 | 18 | 123.214 | Chevy | P | Ed Carpenter Racing |
13 | Graham Rahal | 1:11.2981 | 0.3700 | 14 | 21 | 123.151 | Honda | P | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing |
14 | Jack Harvey | 1:11.3265 | 0.3984 | 14 | 19 | 123.102 | Honda | P | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing |
15 | Pato O'Ward | 1:11.4036 | 0.4755 | 19 | 21 | 122.969 | Chevy | P | Arrow McLaren SP |
16 | Scott McLaughlin | 1:11.4075 | 0.4794 | 7 | 22 | 122.962 | Chevy | P | Team Penske |
17 | Romain Grosjean | 1:11.5888 | 0.6607 | 17 | 22 | 122.650 | Honda | P | Andretti Autosport |
18 | Simon Pagenaud | 1:11.6143 | 0.6862 | 14 | 20 | 122.607 | Honda | P | Meyer Shank Racing |
19 | Devlin DeFrancesco | 1:11.6641 | 0.7360 | 8 | 18 | 122.522 | Honda | P | Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport |
20 | David Malukas | 1:11.7053 | 0.7772 | 12 | 23 | 122.451 | Honda | P | Dale Coyne Racing with HMD |
21 | Conor Daly | 1:11.7370 | 0.8089 | 8 | 19 | 122.397 | Chevy | P | Ed Carpenter Racing |
22 | Dalton Kellett | 1:11.8948 | 0.9667 | 17 | 20 | 122.128 | Chevy | A | AJ Foyt Enterprises |
23 | Jimmie Johnson | 1:12.0338 | 1.1057 | 15 | 18 | 121.893 | Honda | P | Chip Ganassi Racing |
24 | Helio Castroneves | 1:12.0421 | 1.1140 | 14 | 19 | 121.879 | Honda | P | Meyer Shank Racing |
25 | Takuma Sato | 1:12.0941 | 1.1660 | 9 | 20 | 121.791 | Honda | P | Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR |