IndyCar Laguna Seca: Power takes record 68th pole as title rivals falter

In the pole position shootout, Alexander Rossi and Callum Ilott hit the track early on used alternate tyres, while Power went out on primaries but then came straight back in and sat on pitlane, giving himself only one shot at pole.

Romain Grosjean was the first driver into the 1m11s to go fastest, but he was displaced by Ilott who delivered a 1m11.6320s in a remarkable effort in the one-car Juncos Hollinger Racing team.

Rossi looked like he was going to displace the young Brit but got squirrely through the Corkscrew, and fell 0.1378s short in a provisional second.

But then Power produced a 1m11.6127s lap to shade Ilott by 0.0193s on his sole flyer to take pole and the outright IndyCar record with 68, one more than Mario Andretti.

Power returned to the pits congratulated by Andretti himself, as he also moved one point further into the IndyCar championship lead.

It means Power firmly has the advantage going into the title decider, 21 points clear of Newgarden and Dixon, as Newgarden wrecked his weekend by crashing at the Corkscrew on his first timed lap in the first session of qualifying.

The Team Penske driver spun into the gravel and got wedged on the sharp decline between the track, leaving him stranded and out of qualifying and set to start on the back row of the grid.

Josef Newgarden, Team Penske Chevrolet

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Newgarden’s off had a knock-on effect to fellow title contender Dixon, as the first group of Q1 was then restricted to a one-lap shootout after Newgarden’s off, so the Chip Ganassi driver narrowly missed out in seventh place which dropped him out in his group.

Fellow IndyCar crown rivals Scott McLaughlin and Marcus Ericsson were both knocked out in Q2, with the Team Penske driver qualifying in eighth place and the Chip Ganassi driver in 10th.

In the early stages of Q2 Ilott went fastest ahead of Ericsson, but the Swedish driver spun on fresh red-walled tyres exiting the first part of the Corkscrew. He managed to keep his car running but he would lose one good lap due to the yellow flag, leaving him 10th on the final results.

McLaughlin also slipped up late on in Q2, when he drifted wide at Turn 4 on his fastest lap and dropped to eighth.

With Ilott securing his best IndyCar qualifying result of his rookie campaign in second place behind polesitter Power, Rossi had to settle for third as the lead Andretti car just ahead of team-mate Grosjean in fourth.

Outgoing IndyCar champion Alex Palou took fifth for Chip Ganassi Racing, ahead of Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward in sixth.

David Malukas just missed out on the pole shootout by 0.008s in Q2, leaving him seventh ahead of McLaughlin, with Swedes Felix Rosenqvist and Ericsson rounding out the top 10.

IndyCar Laguna Seca - Qualifying Results

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Will Power	Team Penske	3	1'11.6127
2	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	3	1'11.6320	0.0193	0.0193
3	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	3	1'11.7698	0.1571	0.1378
4	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	2	1'11.7858	0.1731	0.0160
5	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	3	1'12.1625	0.5498	0.3767
6	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	4	1'12.4542	0.8415	0.2917
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Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	6	1'11.4238
2	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	6	1'11.4793	0.0555	0.0555
3	Will Power	Team Penske	7	1'11.4871	0.0633	0.0078
4	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	7	1'11.5472	0.1234	0.0601
5	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	1'11.5857	0.1619	0.0385
6	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	7	1'11.6215	0.1977	0.0358
7	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	7	1'11.6295	0.2057	0.0080
8	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	7	1'11.6916	0.2678	0.0621
9	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	7	1'11.7285	0.3047	0.0369
10	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	5	1'12.1359	0.7121	0.4074
11	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	5	1'12.2808	0.8570	0.1449
12	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	5	1'12.8856	1.4618	0.6048
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Q1 G2

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	7	1'11.3471
2	Will Power	Team Penske	6	1'11.3496	0.0025	0.0025
3	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	6	1'11.5631	0.2160	0.2135
4	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	5	1'11.6618	0.3147	0.0987
5	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	7	1'11.9333	0.5862	0.2715
6	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	1'12.0990	0.7519	0.1657
7	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	6	1'12.1442	0.7971	0.0452
8	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	7	1'12.2093	0.8622	0.0651
9	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	6	1'12.2720	0.9249	0.0627
10	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	7	1'12.2996	0.9525	0.0276
11	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing	6	1'12.4489	1.1018	0.1493
12	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	6	1'12.8001	1.4530	0.3512
13	Simona de Silvestro	Paretta Autosport	6	1'13.5181	2.1710	0.7180
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Q1 G1

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	5	1'11.7507
2	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	5	1'11.8474	0.0967	0.0967
3	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	5	1'11.8874	0.1367	0.0400
4	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	5	1'11.8960	0.1453	0.0086
5	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	5	1'11.9993	0.2486	0.1033
6	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	5	1'12.0856	0.3349	0.0863
7	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	5	1'12.1722	0.4215	0.0866
8	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	5	1'12.2661	0.5154	0.0939
9	Kyle Kirkwood	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	4	1'12.4299	0.6792	0.1638
10	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	5	1'12.5970	0.8463	0.1671
11	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	5	1'12.8366	1.0859	0.2396
12	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	5	1'13.4172	1.6665	0.5806
13	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	3
View full results