Herta storms to crushing Nashville IndyCar pole

Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta bagged a second pole position of the 2021 IndyCar season and the first ever on the new Nashville street circuit by destroying the field with a lap 0.5492s better than the opposition.

Herta – who won the St Petersburg street race from pole in April – has the best average starting position in IndyCar this year and topped both practice sessions leading into qualifying.

He was so fast in the first qualifying group that he set the fastest time of the weekend to that point on the harder tyre, while the opposition couldn’t beat him on the supposedly faster softs.

That meant he saved an extra set of fresh softs for the Fast Six pole shootout.

His first lap on his second set would have been under threat by Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, but Herta pulled out the first and only lap of the weekend inside the 1m13s to lead the way by 0.5492s at the last.

Herta also takes the honour of winning the inaugural Bryan Clauson Award for pole. Clauson – a brilliant short track racer and a Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR starter – passed away after a crash at the Belleville Nationals midget race five years ago today.

Dixon is third in the championship and with his rivals not having the best qualifying, he’s put himself in a great position to take advantage.

He had spun twice in practice and on the second spin, he’d slid into the wall, dislodging his rear wing while trying to point his car in the right direction, so qualifying was a good recovery.

Dixon’s points-leading team-mate Alex Palou qualified third but has a six-place grid drop for Sunday after an unapproved engine change pre-weekend.

He’ll now start ninth.

Alexander Rossi had a strong rebound from a practice two crash to take what becomes his best starting position of the year in third, benefiting from Palou’s penalty.

Rossi pondered whether he’s in a good position to get a tow from third on the grid into Turn 9 which is the first corner of the race on Sunday.

Felix Rosenqvist graduating to the top 12 all but guaranteed his best start of the season, but a scrappy Fast Six means he’ll start fourth when the ex-Formula E racer may have had a chance to qualify higher.

The Arrow McLaren SP driver didn’t have enough fuel to go for a faster lap at the end of the session after he had to back out of earlier laps because of traffic.

Rounding out the Fast Six, but starting from fifth because of Palou’s penalty, is Dale Coyne Racing’s Romain Grosjean.

The ex-Formula 1 driver loves the circuit and was fortunate to make the Fast Six after some drama for Josef Newgarden.

Hometown hero Newgarden crashed at Turn 11 in the round of 12.

He tried to keep going to avoid a red flag and consequent penalty, but some debris went on track, causing a yellow which invalidated his best lap.

"You saw it. I just wrecked"

Tough way for @josefnewgarden to end his day in Nashville after making contact with the wall.

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It meant Grosjean took Newgarden’s spot and Newgarden will start 12th, in a painful qualifying for his title hopes as he has a 69-point deficit to overturn in six races – and given he’d been on pole for the previous three races.

In his first race after winning a fourth Indianapolis 500, Helio Castroneves will start his first street course race with Meyer Shank Racing in a respectable 15th, in what is only his third non-oval IndyCar start since 2017.

Behind him, street course ace Sebastien Bourdais and impressive 2021 driver Santino Ferrucci failed to advance from group 2 and start 16th and 17th respectively.

Ganassi’s Marcus Ericsson has placed an emphasis on improving his qualifying performances but could only manage 18th after hitting the inside wall at Turn 3 which broke the right-front suspension.

That will make it tricky to maintain his form – he’s scored more points than anyone since the Indy 500 – but he’s produced terrific fightback drives from down the order before.

The Indianapolis GP race winner from earlier this year, Rinus VeeKay, tagged the wall at Turn 4 on what should have been his fastest lap, meaning he starts 22nd.

Penske’s IndyCar rookie Scott McLaughlin was another victim of the Nashville walls and bent his suspension meaning he starts behind VeeKay in 23rd.

Seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson crashed on an out-lap at the left-hand Turn 10 at the start of the first group in qualifying.

REPLAY: Incident involving @JimmieJohnson who has been checked and cleared at @MusicCityGP.

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— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) August 7, 2021

He locked up and carried too much speed, hitting the wall on the corner exit. Despite this misstep, he starts 25th because Cody Ware behind suffered a penalty for holding up Simon Pagenaud.

Qualifying Results