Mid-Ohio IndyCar: Newgarden beats Herta to pole

Newgarden made it through to the Fast Six final stage of qualifying and lapped the 2.238-mile Mid-Ohio course in 66.673 seconds at an average speed of 121.919mph, to shade Herta by just 0.031s.

These two appeared to be in a league of their own, as Will Power slipped up on what should have been his best lap in the Fast Six, so that his ‘banker’ lap ended up as his fastest.

That allowed Marcus Ericsson of Chip Ganassi Racing to edge ahead of him and into third place.

Ericsson’s team-mate Scott Dixon, a six-time Mid-Ohio winner, finished sixth, ahead of the second fastest Andretti Autosport cars of Alexander Rossi.

Alex Palou, Marcus Ericssson and Scott Dixon all took their Chip Ganassi Racing cars out straight away on scrubbed reds at the start of Q2 and each took turns at the top before pitting for fresh reds, as did the cars who laid down their banker laps using Firestone’s harder primaries.

Sebastien Bourdais incurred a drive-through penalty for exceeding the pitlane speed limit in the AJ Foyt Racing which ruined his chances.

Newgarden, Herta, Power and Rossi were the class of the field, covered by a single-tenth of a second, while a late surge from Dixon and Ericsson knocked their championship leading team-mate Palou out of the top six.

Colton Herta, Andretti Autosport Honda

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Graham Rahal beat two of the Andretti Autosport cars that had moved on from Group 2, but he still didn’t quite advance to the shootout for pole, and will roll off from eighth on the grid.

He'll head James Hinchcliffe and Ryan Hunter-Reay, with Rinus Veekay - who returns from injury - and Bourdais completing the top 12.

Scott McLaughlin missed out on graduating to Q2 by 0.063s, while Romain Grosjean also failed to advance, but the shocker was this morning’s practice leader Pato O’Ward dropping out.

Jack Harvey stopped his Meyer Shank Racing car just beyond the chequered flag at the end of the opening qualifying session, and while Alexander Rossi responded by burping the throttle a little and winding up eighth, Simon Pagenaud apparently didn’t and bumped his way into third.

Rob Edwards, Rossi’s strategist then argued the case with Race Control that Rossi should be in, because not only should Harvey be penalised for causing the yellow, Pagenaud should lose his best time for not slowing.

In fact, IndyCar did penalise Harvey, Pagenaud and Rossi, all losing their best times – but Rossi’s second best time was enough to get him through in sixth.

Mid-Ohio IndyCar - Fast Six results

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	4	1'06.673
2	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	4	1'06.677	0.003
3	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	3	1'07.072	0.398
4	Will Power	Team Penske	4	1'07.116	0.442
5	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	4	1'07.135	0.461
6	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	4	1'07.218	0.544
View full results

Q2

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	7	1'06.163
2	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	7	1'06.203	0.040
3	Will Power	Team Penske	7	1'06.238	0.075
4	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	7	1'06.245	0.082
5	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	6	1'06.277	0.114
6	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	1'06.449	0.286
7	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	1'06.488	0.325
8	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	7	1'06.594	0.431
9	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	7	1'06.613	0.450
10	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	7	1'06.751	0.588
11	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	7	1'06.767	0.604
12	Sébastien Bourdais	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	6	1'06.923	0.760
View full results

Q1 G2

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	7	1'06.268
2	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	1'06.323	0.054
3	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	1'06.458	0.190
4	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	7	1'06.596	0.327
5	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	7	1'06.715	0.447
6	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	7	1'06.725	0.456
7	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	7	1'06.731	0.462
8	Ed Jones	Dale Coyne Racing	6	1'06.788	0.519
9	Romain Grosjean	Dale Coyne Racing	7	1'06.864	0.595
10	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	7	1'06.867	0.599
11	Santino Ferrucci	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	6	1'06.925	0.656
12	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	7	1'07.070	0.801
13	Ryan Norman	Dale Coyne Racing	7	1'07.471	1.202
View full results

Q1 G1

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	7	1'06.016
2	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	1'06.513	0.496
3	Will Power	Team Penske	4	1'06.542	0.525
4	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	7	1'06.560	0.543
5	Sébastien Bourdais	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	7	1'06.611	0.594
6	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	7	1'06.645	0.628
7	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	6	1'06.789	0.773
8	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	8	1'06.843	0.826
9	Max Chilton	Carlin	7	1'06.847	0.830
10	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	7	1'07.095	1.078
11	Dalton Kellett	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	7	1'07.586	1.569
12	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	7	1'07.674	1.657
13	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	7	1'08.407	2.390
View full results