By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
For the third time this season, Alex Palou starts from the pole in an IndyCar series race, taking pole for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio.
Palou, driving the No.10 OpenAI Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing, claims his second career pole at the 2.258 mile road course, a track he won at in 2023. A time of 01:05.0215 was good enough to beat Christian Lundgaard (01:05.2126) who will start second.
“Qualifying was interesting. We had a ton of speed in Q1,” Palou said. “Then Q2 we struggled a little bit with the balance and also speed-wise. We’re still in and we’re still like P3 or P4 but we were still two tenths off, so we wanted to go aggressive. We went on a brand new set of softs for Fast Six instead of keeping it for the race, like I think three guys did it, to try and get that pole, and it worked out.”
Row two sees two young stars of the IndyCar Series in Kyffin Simpson (01:05.7555) and Nolan Siegel (01:05.9262) start third and fourth, respectively. Simpson makes his second top six start of the season, while Siegel will be making his first.
Simpson in only his second IndyCar season is continuing the strong momentum in his sophomore season. Simpson has three top 10’s on the season and has made incredible strides throughout each race weekend
“He’s been amazing this year, especially road courses. He’s been super fast,” Palou said of his 20-year old teammate. “It’s amazing to see that. It’s not only good for the team but for him it’s huge. Hopefully this gives him the confidence to know that he can do it every single weekend.”
Colton Herta (01:06.1218) rounds out the top five and is the highest starting Andretti car.
SEE: Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Starting Grid
Team Penske did not fare as well in qualifying on Saturday as all three cars did not advance from Round One.
Josef Newgarden (01:05.6489) is the highest starting Penske car in 18th, with Scott McLaughlin (01:05.8530) and Will Power (01:05.6745) lining up in 21st and 22nd, respectively.
With another hot and physical race on deck, tire wear and pit strategy will once again dictate how the race plays out. The red, alternate tire was the preferred tire in Road America on June 22 and with similar conditions on Sunday, the alternate tire will be the preferred tire for Sunday’s 90-lap race.
Limited track time across race weekends does not give the drivers the best gauge on how the tires will perform in the race, leading to a ‘wait and see’ mentality from the field.
“How they’re going to do in the race, I don’t think we really know yet,” Lundgaard told the media after the race. “I think some cars are very strong on primes, some cars are very strong on alts. Again, I think you can make both strategies work.
A big gap in wear and performance between the primary and alternate tires will shake up strategies on Sunday, with the faster drivers going for a two-stop strategy while others will save their best for the end of the race by doing a three-stop.
“I think there’s a huge gap in between the primaries and the alternates, which is good,” Palou told the media after qualifying. “I think everybody loves that. That creates different strategies and different opportunities. I think it’s going to be tough if somebody is on primaries and there’s a fast car as well on alternates, it’s going to be tough to defend it. You’re going to be burning on that OT and the hybrid. But it’s going to be tough.”