IndyCar

Grosjean claims his third IndyCar pole in Barber qualifying

by Jack Benyon
4 min read

Romain Grosjean became IndyCar’s first repeat pole winner in 2023 with his third career pole, beating 2021 winner Alex Palou to the honour.

Grosjean was on pole at the Indy road course in 2021 and at St Petersburg earlier this year, the latter he was set to win before being wiped out by Scott McLaughlin.

He had missed much of the first practice session with an engine issue, but rebounded and was clearly the top Andretti car in qualifying.

He delivered two session-topping laps in the Fast Six to see off Palou by just 0.0734s.

Grosjean’s also the eighth different pole winner in a row at the Alabama track.

Pato O’Ward, last year’s winner, took third for Arrow McLaren, ahead of Penske’s top charger Scott McLaughlin.

Scott Dixon set the trend of grabbing banker laps on used soft tyres rather than used hards which is the IndyCar norm, and he managed fifth, ahead of Christian Lundgaard.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan has had a really tough start to the season, but Lundgaard gives the team hope at the venue he had his first IndyCar test and impressed the team at.

The top six was split by just 0.3205s.

Three-time race winner Josef Newgarden was pushed out of the Fast Six by his team-mate and YouTube series co-host Scott McLaughlin with the absolute last lap of Q2.

A clearly angry Newgarden regretted a different tyre warm-up procedure and missed out by 0.0617s.

Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist took eighth with last year’s pole-sitter Rinus VeeKay going off at Turn 2 on his final lap condemning him to ninth. He admitted to ignoring a gentleman’s agreement for overtaking on the out-lap which likely upset Will Power.

Rosenqvist’s team-mate Alexander Rossi – not liking a change on his car for the last run – rounded out the top 10 ahead of Power, who went off at Turn 5 on his last flyer and lamented his engine performance.

Long Beach winner Kyle Kirkwood spun at Turn 1 on his out-lap of his last attempt with a “dumb” mistake that cost him part of the aero on his floor, which meant he was the last driver in Q2 in 12th.

It was a strong group of drivers missing out on graduating from the first two qualifying groups, the first of which was Ganassi’s championship leader Marcus Ericsson who will start 13th after being bumped out at the last possible second by Romain Grosjean.

Rookie Marcus Armstrong should have been just behind Ganassi team-mate Marcus Ericsson in 14th but lost his two fastest laps for holding up Lundgaard while on a warm-up lap. He’ll now start 25th in what is an extremely costly penalty.

Colton Herta starts 14th instead, struggling to extract the time of his team-mates.

Callum Ilott will start 15th as he looks to bounce back from a tough Long Beach at a track he qualified 11th on last year, which was his best qualifying in IndyCar to that point.

Qualifying Results

Pos Name Team Car Q1 Q2 Q3
1 Romain Grosjean Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 1m05.683s 1m05.682s 1m05.839s
2 Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 1m05.587s 1m05.838s 1m05.913s
3 Patricio O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 1m05.74s 1m05.751s 1m05.938s
4 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 1m05.747s 1m05.806s 1m05.951s
5 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 1m05.772s 1m05.898s 1m06.072s
6 Christian Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 1m05.834s 1m05.866s 1m06.16s
7 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 1m05.588s 1m05.96s
8 Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 1m05.869s 1m06.093s
9 Rinus VeeKay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 1m05.78s 1m06.122s
10 Alexander Rossi Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 1m05.693s 1m06.209s
11 Will Power Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 1m05.976s 1m06.379s
12 Kyle Kirkwood Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 1m05.735s 1m06.396s
13 Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 1m05.92s
14 Colton Herta Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 1m06.185s
15 Callum Ilott Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 1m06.064s
16 Simon Pagenaud Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 1m06.243s
17 David Malukas Dale Coyne Racing/HMD Motorsports Dallara DW12-Honda 1m06.185s
18 Devlin DeFrancesco Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 1m06.441s
19 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 1m06.25s
20 Conor Daly Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 1m06.481s
21 Hélio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 1m06.271s
22 Agustín Canapino Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 1m06.515s
23 Sting Ray Robb Dale Coyne Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 1m06.592s
24 Jack Harvey Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 1m06.718s
25 Benjamin Pedersen AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 1m06.932s
26 Marcus Armstrong Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 1m07.237s
27 Santino Ferrucci AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 3m49.146s
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