INDIANAPOLIS — With darkness closing in on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren SP turned up the speed on his No. 5 Chevrolet.
O’Ward whipped off a lap at 1:10.7147 around the 14-turn, 2.439-mile IMS road course to claim the Verizon P1 Award for Saturday’s Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix.
It was O’Ward’s third pole of the season.
“I wanted to make sure that this was a turning point,” O’Ward said. “We’ve had a very tough last few races. And we’re ready to get back into victory lane. This is the first step to that. And tomorrow, we have a job to finish. Just continuing on. There are still five races to go, and a lot can happen. But this is definitely on the right track.
“Thanks to our test in Portland, we found a few things that I knew were going to help us here, and I’ve never been so excited to race here on the Indy road course. Since practice, I said we’re going to get some good points this weekend.”
O’Ward’s Chevrolet kept Team Penske driver Will Power from the pole. Power complained after the modified knockout round of qualifications that O’Ward had impeded his lap at the beginning of the second session. IndyCar officials ruled in O’Ward’s favor.
Power’s fast lap was 1:10.7214.
“You’ve got to risk it to get the biscuit,” O’Ward said. “I’m looking forward to turning the page from these crappy last three race, don’t look back and move ahead to the last race at Long Beach in September.”
Instead of three rounds of qualifications culminating in the Firestone Fast Six, IndyCar reduced it to two rounds because of pending darkness.
“The car was good, pretty good conditions, the car was good and I’m glad to be back in the groove again,” Power said. “I’m just happy to be starting out front again.
“If you are just a little outside of the window, you are going out be out of the game. We’ve been there all weekend; all day and we’ll see how the race goes. Long race, we can do something from there.”
The front row contains two Chevrolets. Third place went to Romain Grosjean of Dale Coyne Racing with RWR with a lap at 1:10.7418. Christian Lundgaard of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, in his first IndyCar qualifying session, was fourth at 1:10.7433 in the No. 45 Honda.
Did the 20-year-old expect to be this good, this quickly?
“Apparently, yes,” Lundgaard said. “Let’s just say I didn’t expect to be here now. I’m super enjoying this and to have fans here is awesome. I’m enjoying myself with all of the opportunities that I have to prove myself.”
Colton Herta’s No. 26 Honda was fifth at 1:10.7631 and Alex Palou’s No. 10 Honda was sixth at 1:10.8290.
Outside the “Fast Six” were Jack Harvey in seventh in a Honda, followed by Conor Daly’s Chevrolet, Rinus VeeKay’s Chevy and Alexander Rossi’s Honda.
Scott Dixon spun on his qualification lap and will start 26th.
“We tried a few things from this morning because we didn’t get a proper few runs,” Dixon explained. “It’s going to make for an interesting race tomorrow. It will be a tough day for us on our car. Maybe strategy will play out.
“Anything is possible. We’ll have to hope something happens 10 or 15 laps in. Not a great start for the weekend.”
IndyCar has a warmup session Saturday morning followed by the Big Machine Spiked Coolers Grand Prix at 1 p.m. Eastern Time.