Rosenqvist driving for the awesome Indy 500 team in Arrow McLaren Qualifying

Felix Rosenqvist averaged four laps of nearly 234 mph to best longtime teammate Alexander Rossi’s top performance on Day 1 of qualifying for the 107th edition of the Indianapolis 500. In fact, all four Arrow McLaren Chevrolet drivers booked a spot in the Fast Fast Cycle 12 on Sunday, where they will face opposition from the quartet of Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, the amazingly strong AJ Foyt Racing entries from Santino Ferrucci and rookie Benjamin Pedersen, and solo entries from Team Penske and Ed Carpenter Racing.

After pulling off the original qualifying line, Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was the first to hit the track from Lane 1 – priority lane – and while his first lap was an astounding 233.515 mph, there was a 2.2 mph loss over the course of the four laps. , and he did well to deliver an average of 232.503 mph, which was enough for twelfth place at the time.

Ryan Hunter Racing Dreyer and Reinbold Racing Chevy made a second run and the 2014 Indy 500 champion improved to 17th, Colton Herta didn’t improve on his second attempt and then Josef Newgarden’s first run was enough to knock McLaughlin out of the top 12. .

Hélio Castroneves’ second run was more comfortable than his first, and he moved himself out of the danger zone of needing to scrimmage for the final row on Sunday, achieving a 20th-place finish at 231.954mph. Teammate Pagenaud had a metronomic-like speed in his second run—three 231.9 mph and 231.6 mph—and came in twenty-second.

Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson defended losing 1 mph through four laps and improved to 10th, but Graham Rahal continued to struggle, faster than Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Callum Ilott. Another RLL car, Christian Lundgaard, handed the opposite kind to Rahal’s comfortable-if-sluggish No. 45 Hy-Vee, moving up to 29th.

The 2018 Penske winner’s original run had dropped to 17th in the standings by the time he hit the track again, but he moved smoothly into 11th with an average of 232.719 mph to bump teammate Newgarden into the top 12 drivers can run again on Sunday at Find center stage.

Ilott spread from 34th to 27th in his second outing, after JHR fine-tuned the new chassis he built overnight, but another troubled RLL driver, Jack Harvey, saw his second qualifying attempt by IndyCar as the first three laps were under 230 miles. per hour, and David Mallukas suffered the same fate with Dale Coyne Racing.

Tony Kanaan was 15th when he took to the track for the second time and set the same time as Ed Carpenter’s original run to the ten-thousandth of a second, but because he set it later he was classified 13th and therefore still not in the group to run again on Sunday.

Five-time Indy polesitter Scott Dixon returned with 2hrs 0min to go and ran three laps north of 233mph and a fourth of 232.6mph resulting in an average of 233.375mph – enough to wear him off the lower reaches to the top. 10 in fourth place.

Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta tried to improve and failed, teammate Kyle Kirkwood improved but stayed outside the top ten, and Romain Grosjean’s next attempt fizzled out.

Ed Carpenter tried to improve but left out of Lane 2, so when lap four brought his average down, his original speed kept him in the top 12.

Juncos Hollinger fielded rookie Agustin Canapino for round two, but the always impressive touring car had a scary moment in turn one, slamming his right-rear tire against the SAFER barrier hard enough to damage his suspension, briefly causing the #78 car to elude fearfully, but he Slow it down and bring it to the pit road.

With two hours to go, Takuma Sato, who was lying in eighth position, exited lane 2 and promptly hit 234.085 mph on the opening lap. The backtracking was fast and the fourth lap was down to 232.779mph, but he jumped up to fifth, narrowly ahead of Dixon, but ahead of Arrow McLaren’s Pato Oward.

Marco Andretti took a ride that he decided to abort after two laps, before Ericsson took the third to try to get him a little harder into the top-dozen. He did, albeit marginally, improving from tenth to ninth, while Castroneves only went a few laps in this third run, and Newgarden’s first lap in his second run was a mile an hour shorter than the first lap on his first attempt, so Team leader was Tim. Cendric summoned him.

Kirkwood went again, caught up on all four laps, and grabbed the 12th-place finish, as Carpenter jumped out of the top-dozen by 0.042 mph.

Then it’s time for Rahal to try again in the field – ideally a Top 30, so he won’t have to run the altitude session on Sunday. The car seemed stable, at least, but the first three laps were just under 230 mph and the race broke off.

The Malukas made a third attempt and posted the 30th fastest time, bumping Lundgaard, thus RLL pushed Dane’s car into lane 1 to pull its time and get it out on track. Once Coyne’s second driver, Sting Ray Robb, had tried and failed to climb into the top 30, it was Lundgaard’s turn to bounce back. The Indy GP polesitter has done just enough to land the 30th fastest pace, beating out the Malukas.

Kanaan arrived on the track 75 minutes before the start, and it was sensational – the 2013 Indy winner ran an opening distance of 234.057mph, followed by two runs of 233.3mph and 232.663mph to jump into fifth place, making sure that every team The four Arrow McLarens were in the top ten, and Kirkwood was out. That left the power on the bubble in Fast 12.

Whatever TK can do, Rosenqvist can do better. He ran two laps over 234 mph, a third lap 0.4 mph higher than Rossi’s third, and even his fourth lap was inside 233 mph, resulting in an average of 233.947 mph. Finally, Rossi was displaced from the lead, albeit by another McLaren.

Carpenter tried in vain, despite a very brave run, to get back into the top ten, and if the Turn 4 SAFER barrier had an extra coat of paint, he crashed it. He remained in thirteenth place.

Hertha made a fourth attempt to improve his average but could not get it done; Pagenaud remained 22nd. Grosjean also failed to improve.

Then McLaughlin came again and made an improvement but only to 14th while his Penske Power teammate improved marginally as well, but stayed 12th. Then it was time for the Dreyer & Reinbold Racing pair to run again. Stefan Wilson’s final attempt kept him in 24th after a strange loss of pace on lap three, while Hunter-Reay started the race in 18th and stayed there.

Rahal made another attempt to get into the field, but IndyCar annihilated him two laps later, proving that RLL had yet to find the magic bullet for the No. 15 car, and Harvey’s next race in the No. 30 showed that he was in a similar agonizing position.

By contrast, the Malukas found a late turn of pace to jump into 23rd with an average of 231.769 mph, and Dale Coyne Racing with the HMD car was very safely in the field.

Undaunted, Penske pulled Newgarden’s standing time by pushing him into lane 1, but his impressively consistent run was good enough for 17th, losing him a place.

The next car was Coyne’s second machine, Robb’s RWR entry, but he couldn’t muster the pace to guarantee his place in the field, and neither could Lundgaard in the dying moments.

Sunday’s four-way battle for the last three pole positions will involve three RLL drivers – Rahal, Harvey and Lundgaard – and Robb’s Coyne/RWR car.

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