Herta denies Harvey St Petersburg IndyCar pole

Colton Herta took pole position in a thrilling IndyCar qualifying session at St Petersburg.

None of IndyCar’s star rookies Romain Grosjean, Scott McLaughlin (raced at St Pete last year) and Jimmie Johnson made it out of the first pair of qualifying groups, which whittle down the field to 12 cars fighting for places in the ‘Fast Six’ pole shootout.

McLaughlin will start 14th, Grosjean 18th and Johnson in 23rd.

Will Power was another star name missing from the pole session.

Power has taken nine of the last 11 St Pete IndyCar poles, and came into this weekend having just secured a new Penske contract through 2023 and fresh from a strong second place in the Barber opener.

But his pace looked questionable in practice and he hit the wall on what should have been his best lap in group qualifying, knocking his rear-right wheel out of line.

REPLAY: @12WillPower makes contact with the wall during his qualifications attempt.

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He will start 20th, saying it was “probably my worst qualifying in history”.

The ‘Fast Six’ was given a brilliant sense of intrigue as Arrow McLaren SP – and its driver Pato O’Ward who scored pole last weekend at Barber – tried to go for pole on a fresh set of hard tyres.

The team believed his final lap would be faster than his rivals could manage on used softs that they’d already deployed in the earlier sessions.

O’Ward’s first flying lap gave a flavour of what was to come though as he was totally sideways exiting Turn 2 and without his sensational car control he would have been in the wall.

But he ended up the slowest in the session, 0.7589s off the pace.

While the focus was on O’Ward’s strategy, minnow team Meyer Shank Racing – which has engineering support from the Honda-powered Andretti Autosport team that also runs Herta – shot to the top of the board after a strong day.

But Herta always appeared to have time in hand and delivered a lap quickest by 0.2499s to take pole, as he looks to rebound after being caught up in a lap one crash at Barber.

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Josef Newgarden, the 2020 St Petersburg winner, was fastest in both practices but couldn’t replicate his session topping pace in qualifying. He is joined on the second row by Penske team-mate Simon Pagenaud.

Sebastien Bourdais – fresh off a brilliant tactical drive to fifth with AJ Foyt Racing at Barber from 16th on the grid – will start much higher in fifth at a track he won at in 2017 and 2018.

Rinus VeeKay – still driving with a broken finger from a pre-season crash – was the first car to miss out on the ‘Fast Six’ so starts seventh. He finished sixth at Barber despite also being caught up in the lap one crash.

Scott Dixon was one spot behind in eighth and the best Chip Ganassi Racing car in a subdued session for the squad that dominated at Barber.

Dixon escaped from the first group in miraculous fashion as he ran into the run-off at Turn 8, bringing out a yellow which meant he would lose his fastest lap in the session as per IndyCar qualifying rules.

However, his second best lap was 0.0603s quick enough to see him through, even though he ran wide again at Turn 8 on another lap.

His team-mate Alex Palou was 10th behind Dixon and Graham Rahal, off the back of winning on his debut for Ganassi last weekend. The team’s third driver Marcus Ericsson could only manage 16th.

Alexander Rossi had been the fastest in the first qualifying group on both tyres, but after starting on the front row at Barber he failed to make the Fast Six and starts 11th ahead of Andretti team-mate James Hinchcliffe.

Following a nightmare debut with Arrow McLaren SP at Barber where he crashed in the pits in practice, ended qualifying in the gravel and was involved in a crash in the race, Felix Rosenqvist failed to follow his team-mate O’Ward into the round of 12 from the first group. He’ll start 17th.

Qualifying Results