Although Team Penske-Chevrolet looked somewhat off the ultimate pace through practice, no one expected Josef Newgarden to be eliminated in the first segment of qualifying, and Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing had also looked very strong in practice yet fell at the first hurdle.
With a 27-car field, even Q1 Groups can have 13 or 14 cars on track at the same time, and around St. Petersburg’s one-minute / 1.8-mile course, that can spell disaster for anyone on a hot lap.
Newgarden could not find a clear lap and will start 14th, while VeeKay is gutted to be lining up outside the Top 20.
"Coming into Turn 10, guys were just standing still and screwed my last sector,” said the Dutchman who scored his first and so far only win at Indy road course in 2021. “We were definitely on for advancing.
“I think we had the pace for Fast Six and you find guys standing still there [referring to Alex Palou] and they're laughing but we're out. We'll have to come from far away, even though we have pace it doesn't help.
“It pisses me off that nobody is getting penalties. If it's like this, everyone should be doing it.
“We should not be in 23rd or 24th. It's really annoying, and I'm very angry and so is the team.”
While Firestone is supplying three sets of alternate compound tires for qualifying this year, as opposed to two last year, both Marcus Ericsson of Chip Ganassi Racing and Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Autosport used up two sets in Q1 to get through to the top 12 due to being baulked on qualifying runs, thus were at a disadvantage of having available only used sets once they advanced to Q3/Firestone Fast Six.
Kirkwood’s problems got much worse when he was caught out by the tailwind on the run down to the final turn, locking up his left front and understeering off into the concrete barrier.
“I just locked up on entry and the way the downwind section is at the moment it's a little bit sketchy and I still had a lot of unloaded weight on the left-front,” said the 24-year-old who moved from AJ Foyt Racing to Andretti Autosport over the winter. “It locked up and it's impossible to get the tire to unlock. So unfortunately I just ended up in the wall. Disappointing.
“It's my first Fast Six, the team has been amazing and I couldn't be happier, but obviously with not how it ended. I wasn't even pushing that hard but it was cold tires and with the ride-heights being the way they were.”
Will Power, defending IndyCar champion and a nine-time pole-winner at St. Petersburg also said that the gusts of wind through the final turn was the reason he fell 0.15sec short of advancing to the Fast Six.
"Traffic wasn't a problem at all,” he said. “I just kept getting push. You get that strong wind there in the last corner and I just understeered, went down a tenth and a half, and with this group it's just so hard to grab that back. Still happy to make it into the top 10 with the fierce competition out there.”
