PORTLAND, Ore. — For the first time since 2009, Graham Rahal is a two-time pole winner in an IndyCar Series season.
The Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver won the pole for Sunday’s Bitnile.com Grand Prix of Portland at Portland Int’l Raceway.
Rahal had not won a pole since 2017, until he won the pole on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course for the Gallagher Grand Prix on Aug. 11. Two races later, he has his second pole of the season.
Rahal drove the No. 15 PeopleReady Honda to the pole with a fast lap at 58.3195 seconds around the 12-turn, 1.964-mile Portland International Raceway road course.
“It’s just nice to make it happen,” Rahal said. “We have the expectations from within and it’s nice to just make it happen. Going into qualifying feeling confident, that you don’t have to overdrive and put a solid lap together and be in the hunt, it’s nice to feel that again. That’s where we are at right now.”
Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske was hoping to make it two poles in a row at Portland. He fell just short with a fast lap at 58.3525 seconds in the No. 3 Freightliner Chevrolet. It’s his sixth front row start of the season.
“I can’t be upset with a front row start, but I just left a little bit out there,” McLaughlin said. “We locked it up a little bit in Turn 12 and missed that push lap there. Congrats to Graham. At the end of the day, Graham put a really good lap together and we ended up P2, which really isn’t that bad. I’m pretty confident with our race car tomorrow and see how things turn out.”
Colton Herta of Andretti Autosport was third at 58.4576 seconds in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda. Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing was fourth in the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda at 58.5803 seconds. Championship points leader Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing was fifth at 58.6492 seconds in the No. 10 American Legion Honda.
Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren was sixth at 58.6737 seconds in the No. 5 Chevrolet.
Palou has a 74-point lead over teammate Dixon entering the race and can clinch the NTT IndyCar Series championship if he leaves with a 54-point edge over Dixon. Maximum points for each IndyCar race are 54.
If Palou finished third or better, he would clinch the championship regardless of what Dixon does.
Dixon must gain 21 points to extend the championship fight to WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca next week.
Earlier in the first group of Segment One, Felix Rosenqvist was the fastest at 57.8967 seconds in the No. 6 Chevrolet. He was followed by Herta, Josef Newgarden, Rahal, Will Power and Callum Ilott. Drivers that did not advance were Rinus VeeKay, Romain Grosjean, Christian Lundgaard, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Devlin DeFrancesco, Santino Ferrucci and Sting Ray Robb.
The six that advanced out of the second group were Palou, McLaughlin, O’Ward, Dixon, Alexander Rossi and Marcus Ericsson. Marcus Armstrong, Kyle Kirkwood, Juri Vips, Augustin Canapino, Helio Castroneves, David Malukas, Benjamin Pedersen and Tom Blomqvist did not advance.
In the second segment, Newgarden stuffed his No. 2 Hitachi Chevrolet into the Turn 11 Tire barrier and did not advance.
“Unfortunately, I made a mistake,” Newgarden said. “I got in too hot and made a big mistake. I don’t know if I’m surprised, I just made a mistake. I’ll have a better idea once we get through warmup. The team has done a good job. We’ll see later on.”
McLaughlin was the fastest in the round of 12 at 58.0777 seconds followed by Herta’s 58.2238, O’Ward’s 58.2579, Dixon’s 48.2653, Palou’s 53.3232 and Rahal’s 58.3248.
They advanced into the Firestone Fast Six. Power, Ilott, Rossi, Ericsson, Rosenqvist and Newgarden did not.
“Last night, we struggled on the Red Tire and went to the new Blacks to make it work today,” Rahal said. “It’s nice to have two poles here this season. Hopefully, we can finish it off in the race. It felt really good to put that lap in. The strategy will be straightforward to us. We’ll have a lot of tires to use. Certainly, a great day for us.”