WEST ALLIS, Wis. — After spending a morning on pit lane at The Milwaukee Mile, there were more drivers upset than happy during qualifications for this weekend’s doubleheader.
Each driver at this weekend’s Snap-On Makers And Fixers 250 at the Milwaukee driver made one qualification attempt of two laps each. The fastest driver on the first lap won the pole for Saturday’s race.
The fastest driver on the second lap won the pole for Sunday’s second race of the Milwaukee doubleheader.
Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was the fastest driver on his first lap and won the NTT P1 Award for Saturday’s race. McLaughlin’s fast lap was 165.536 miles per hour in the No. 3 Chevrolet. But McLaughlin was upset that his second lap was off the pace and he will start Sunday’s eighth at 162.560 mph.
To add to the confusion, McLaughlin won’t start Saturday’s race on the pole because his car is one of five entries that incurred nine grid position penalties for being over their allotment of engines for the season.
The others are Alex Palou’s No. 10 Honda, David Malukas’ No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet, Rinus VeeKay’s No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Chevrolet and Sting Ray Robb’s No. 77 Chevrolet. Each driver will start nine positions behind where they actually qualified.
That means the driver that will actually start on the pole, although he won’t get the point or the trophy, is Pato O’Ward, who was second fastest at 164.655 mph.
“I’m happy with the PPG Chevy, and I felt that was a solid lap for sure,” McLaughlin said. “I’m still a little bit pissed about the second lap, but I think we held on to eighth. Very proud, great for Chevy. I love Milwaukee Mile. I love coming here. Wisconsin fans are so nice to me and now I’m very excited. Just want to put on a show from wherever we are. i think we’re nine, so we’ll just ship it and see where we end up. So, yeah, it’s going to be a beautiful day. It’s not going to rain. It’s just going to keep being nice and we’re going to have a great day.”
As for Race No. 2 on Sunday, the fastest driver was Palou, who ran the fastest overall lap of the session at 164.658 mph in the No. 10 Honda.
Palou can clinch his fourth-straight NTT IndyCar Series Championship and fifth overall if he finishes Saturday’s race 108 points ahead of second place. That is currently held by Kyle Kirkwood, who is 91 points behind, but crashed in Friday’s qualifications and had a poor qualification effort in Saturday’s time trials.
It was Palou’s eighth pole of the season.
Kirkwood starts 22nd in Saturday’s race and 24th on Sunday. Palou will line up second after recording a lap at 164.147 mph but actually start the race nine spots behind that.
If all that sounds confusing, that’s because it is.
But Palou’s pole for Sunday will stand and his starting position on Saturday is still quite good that he could possibly be crowned the champion, if not later Saturday, certainly on Sunday.
“I would prefer not to have that penalty, but this is probably the only place if you have a fast car and you feel good with the car, we have plenty of laps to make our way forward,” Palou said. “I was really comfortable with the car.”
The top five qualifiers for Saturday’s race include McLaughlin, Palou, David Malukas (164.058 mph), O’Ward (164.019 mph) and Josef Newgarden (163.771 mph). But the top three drivers all have grid penalties, so O’Ward will actually lead the field to the green flag in Saturday’s race that starts at 2:35 p.m. Eastern Time.
The top five starters for Sunday’s race include Palou, O’Ward (164.655 mph), Newgarden (163.767 mph), Mick Schumacher (163.244 mph), and Will Power (163.243 mph).
That race begins at 1 p.m. Eastern Time.
