NEWTON, Iowa — Colton Herta of Andretti Global and Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske grabbed poles in Saturday’s qualifications for the Hy-Vee IndyCar Race Weekend at Iowa Speedway.
Herta’s first lap of 187.655 miles per hour around the seven-eighths of a mile short oval was the fastest of any driver’s first lap and that earned him the pole for Saturday night’s Hy-Vee Homefront 250, which is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. ET.
It was Herta’s second NTT P1 Award of the season, the 13th of his career and his first on an oval.
“It’s awesome,” Herta said. “It kind of get the monkey off the back — first pole on an oval. The car seemed good in all conditions yesterday in practice. Should have a fast race car for tonight and tomorrow afternoon.
“It was a little bit of a bizarre one. We got it there at the end.”
McLaughlin’s second lap was a track record 188.248 miles per hour and he will lead the field to the green from the pole in Sunday’s Hy-Vee One Step 250 that begins at 12:30 p.m. ET.
“Solid start,” McLaughlin said. “Can’t be unhappy with two front rows. “’Little Bug’ (Herta) is a little bit lighter than me, so probably a little bit faster on that first lap.
“We were watching ‘Love Island’ together the last couple nights as well. Not a bad start, “Love Island’ boys. Excited for what’s ahead. It’s fun. I love this place.”
McLaughlin was one of the few drivers who ran a faster lap on the second of his two laps while most had the fast lap on the first.
“A little bit of both,” McLaughlin said. “I think the car has been really strong since we started testing here. Even on the other compound. Doing the lap later in the run, that’s sort of how it has been in the race as well. Hopefully, that bodes well for us.
“Thankfully we were able to put a big enough time up at the start. Yeah, it’s nice, it’s a good feeling going into tonight, especially where the track is probably going to be a little bit cooler and whatnot, tomorrow when it’s a little bit hotter. Have a car for both ends. See what we got.”
Saturday’s session, however, included some uncertainty when several drivers said their hybrid unit did not work. One of those was Herta, who at one point considered making a second attempt because the issue pertained to the Hybrid and not Andretti Global.
After getting the issue corrected, Herta was prepared to go before the team decided to accept both laps.
The Andretti Global driver will start fourth in Sunday’s race when his second lap was 186.980 mph.
“Well, it never worked, so it never deployed, never regened,” Herta explained of the Hybrid, IndyCar’s new electrically charged power assist device. “As far as I understand it, it wasn’t a mechanical thing.
“I think the idea of going back out was it’s going to be free lap time to go back out there and run again in similar conditions that we just did. Obviously, it’s 60 extra horsepower for whatever, four or five seconds, it’s big around this place, especially with a field so tight.
“I still don’t know what happened. There’s a lot of confusion. A lot of people saying different things. I haven’t even talked to the team yet, so…
“They told me run again. I got in the car. They said, ‘We’re not running again.’ I don’t really know what happened.”
The driver who made a second qualification attempt was Jack Harvey in the No. 18 Honda for Dale Coyne Racing for RWR. He also had a hybrid failure on his first attempt and improved his speed in a second run. Harvey will start 19th in Saturday night’s race and 18th in Sunday’s race with 27-car fields in both.
The top five for Saturday night’s race include Herta in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda for Andretti Global at 187.655 mph followed by McLaughlin’s 187.526 mph in the No. 3 Chevrolet for Team Penske.
IndyCar Series points leader and two-time champion Alex Palou starts third at 186.841 mph in the No. 10 DHL Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing. Will Power, who won the last four poles at Iowa Speedway, was fourth at 186.328 mph in the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet.
Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing was fifth in the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda at 186.208 mph.
For Sunday’s race, McLaughlin starts on the pole at 188.248 mph in the No. 3 XPEL Chevrolet for Team Penske. Palou starts second at 187.572 mph in the No. 10 Honda followed by Dixon’s 187.162 mph and Herta’s 186.980.
Felix Rosenqvist of Meyer Shank Racing rounds out the top five at 186.835 mph.
Drivers will be faced with a variety of challenges at Iowa Speedway, including repaved sections in the lower lanes at both ends of the track that could make it a one-groove race track. The repaved areas were done by NASCAR, the track owner, when it brought the NASCAR Cup Series to Iowa Speedway for the first time in the June 16 Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol.
Indy cars run much faster and with two different grip levels, the higher lanes are about one second slower, according to several IndyCar drivers after their qualification attempt.