INDIANAPOLIS — It was a day of speed, surprises and plenum fires at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during Saturday’s pole qualifications.
The speed was delivered by Team Penske, which swept the provisional front row with the three fastest qualification efforts on Saturday’s 6-hour-50-minute session at the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Will Power was the fastest with a four-lap average of 233.758 miles per hour in the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet. Teammate Scott McLaughlin of New Zealand was second at 233.332 mph in the No. 3 Pennzoil Chevrolet. Josef Newgarden, the 2023 Indianapolis 500 winner, was third at 233.293 miles per hour.
“It was a good smooth run,” Power said. “Obviously got an early draw, which helps. Would like to have run in the heat, but Roger didn’t want us to go out. We’ll do the practice tomorrow.
“I think Alexander Rossi is the one that could break up an all-Penske front row, but I think one of us will get the pole, I hope. We put a lot of work in. All the cars are about the same speed, and it’ll be about the run.
“I don’t think it really matters where you start. I think you win this race from anywhere. It would just be a nice box to tick. I haven’t had many shots at getting a pole here, so to be in the game is really nice. We’ll see tomorrow.
“I’ll do everything I can.”
VeeKay’s Last Second Heroics
The surprises came early, and quickly as one of the fast favorites for a Fast 12 position, Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing, had a massive crash in turn three just 14 minutes into qualifications.
His Ed Carpenter Racing crew spent the rest of the day repairing his No. 21 Chevrolet and getting him back out in time to make two more qualification attempts.
VeeKay raced his way into the Fast 12 in the final 15 min minutes with a four-lap average of 232.419 mph. He had previously withdrawn a qualification speed that had him 29th on the grid but moved up to 11th and enters Sunday with a chance to compete in the Fast 12 session that will determine the Fast Six and the battle for the pole position.
“What a day,” VeeKay said. “Like I said earlier, it would be a really cool story, but I like boring stories more.
“Yeah, what a day indeed. Just such a roller coaster. I mean, such a heartbreak to start the day. Crew got the car back together in under three hours, which is incredible to start with. Then to get a banker run in, get the car cooled down, go back out again at the end and do that — I’ve never lost hope, but I mean, I never expected us to do that. It’s such a great story, such a great job by the guys.
“I think they are the real winners here today. I just had to stay flat for four laps today and hang on to the thing. They made it possible for me. Yeah, just really, really, really good job.”
Last Chance Drivers
On the other end of the spectrum was 2022 Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson of Andretti Global, who crashed his car in practice on Thursday and had to use the backup car beginning Friday and on Saturday.
By the end of the session, and despite multiple attempts, Ericsson is one of four drivers that will have to battle it out for the final three positions in Sunday’s Last Chance Qualifying. His best speed was 230.603 mph in the No. 28 Honda, not good enough to make the top 30.
“It’s tough for sure,” Ericsson said. “You’re obviously out there driving everything you’ve got, and our car for some reason has not really got the speed or the grip at the moment, so you sort of feel like you’re doing 234s but you’re doing 230s, and yeah, it’s quite tricky.
“Like I said, we just kept trying things, and I thought we made some progress in the end there, but not enough. So, we need to try and understand — we have quick teammates. Our primary car was really fast before I crashed it. We’ll see if we can learn something from the data tonight and try it put it better together tomorrow. Yeah, it’s tough for sure.
“The mindset is to go out and fight and do my best. That’s what we always do. I’m hungry to do that, and we’ll look at data, look at videos tonight, see if I can do something better, and then work with the engineering staff and try and optimize the car.
“That’s how it goes. This place is tough. I think everyone can say that. We’ve been through ups and downs here. At the moment it’s tough for us, but we need to keep fighting.
“We still have some potential. Can we put the car together and put ourselves in the race. We have not a lot, but we have a bit of time to try and tune on that for the race, and then anything can happen. We’ll sort of dig deep and go out and fight tomorrow.”
And for the second year in a row, Graham Rahal of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing will have to make the race in the Last Chance Qualifying. He struggled through multiple qualification attempts and his No. 15 Honda was bumped at 230.233 mph.
“It’s just the way this place goes sometimes,” Rahal said. “Unfortunately, as I said, I feel like we busted our butts in the off-season, but we’re still not there.
“We’ve just got to keep going back to the drawing board and try to find more. There’s no quit in these guys; I said that to them on the radio during my in-lap. I can see it. I can see the pain in their eyes, particularly the mechanics. It’s a terrible, terrible feeling to see that after all the work that they’ve put in. I mean, countless, countless, countless hours.
“I wish they were rewarded with a better performance than this, but I also have been around here long enough to know you can’t panic, and today our car balance was quite good on a couple of runs. You’re not going to make it more neutral and go find two miles an hour. It’s just not the way it works.
“Sad that it’s us again, but that’s life, and these things happen for a reason. They toughen you up, and hopefully we can get through tomorrow in a different fashion than we did last year, have a good day on Monday, and go from there. But we’ll see.”
In another major surprise, none of the five Chip Ganassi Racing entries are in the Fast 12 including NTT IndyCar Series points leader and two-time IndyCar champion Alex Palou and 2008 Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon.
Kyle Larson’s Rollercoaster Day
It was also a day when there were six plenum fires on Chevrolet engines that affected many of the top drivers including 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson.
On his first attempt on the final lap, a plenum backfire sent the engine into safe mode, cutting the power to keep from damaging the engine. It was just enough to slow Larson’s lap and keep him out of the Fast 12.
He came back in the heat of the afternoon for a second attempt that averaged 232.563 mph over four laps around the 2.5-mile oval.
“There was some alarm that popped up on the dash and cut a bunch of power,” Larson said after he climbed out of the car Saturday morning. “I haven’t talked to anybody. I don’t know what happened. That sucks. I don’t know what happened.
“I felt like off turn four I got a little free once, coming to the white. Then, we didn’t make it off Turn 2. I have to catch up with them and see what the problem is.
“But yeah, that sucks.”
Chevrolet’s Jim Campbell and Rob Buckner spoke to the media afterwards and explained the issue was created by increasing the turbocharger boost for Fast Friday and for this weekend’s qualifications.
Campbell said the company will be testing the Chevrolet engines on dynos around the world overnight to see if it can be corrected before Sunday’s activity at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Fast 12 Drivers
The Fast 12 currently includes Arrow McLaren’s Alexander Rossi at 232.962 mph in the No. 7 Chevrolet, Kyle Kirkwood’s AutoNation Honda from Andretti Global with a four-lap run at 232.756 and Larson, who overcame an issue on his first attempt to make it safely into the Fast 12 with his second run.
“It was a pretty wild day for us,” Rossi said. “It started with the draw last night, thanks to 34th. It was pretty tough. Obviously, it was a little chaotic for the whole organization in the beginning.
“But we knew we had fast cars, and it was a lot of just teamwork to kind of stay calm with the unpredictable stuff that started to happen.
“I think Arrow McLaren did a great job so far this month. We’ve had good cars in really all conditions. Chevy has done an unbelievable job in making our lives pretty easy.
“It’s the job we needed to do today, and now we focus on tomorrow.”
Row 3 includes Felix Rosenqvist of Meyer Shank Racing with a four-lap average of 232.547 mph in the No. 60 SiriusXM/AutoNation Honda, Santino Ferrucci’s 232.496 mph in the No. 14 Chevrolet for A.J. Foyt Racing and Takuma Sato of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in the No. 75 Honda with a four-lap average of 232.473 mph.
Pato O’Ward was another driver with a plenum fire but battled back to qualify 10th at 232.434 mph in the No. 5 Chevrolet. VeeKay is 11th at 232.419 mph and 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay in the No. 23 Chevrolet for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing with Cusick Motorsports at 232.385 mph.
Positions 13-30 are locked into the starting lineup based on Saturday’s qualifications and will not have to make qualification attempts on Sunday.
The schedule for Pole Day includes the Fast 12 followed by the Last Chance Qualifying and culminating with the Fast Six and the run for the Indy 500 Pole.