IndyCar

IndyCar Texas qualifying canned, starting line-up explained

by Jack Benyon
6 min read

Returning legend Tony Kanaan topped an extended practice session at IndyCar’s first oval outing of the season at Texas, while qualifying has been cancelled meaning the championship standings will now decide the grid order for each race.

A rain delay halted practice by over an hour and a half, and IndyCar elected to cancel qualifying and extend practice to 90 minutes instead.

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Once started, the session went unaffected in terms of rain and no one made the costly mistake of crashing, which could have jeopardised getting a car repaired in time – something that happened to Takuma Sato after his qualifying crash last year.

Kanaan is taking over the #48 Chip Ganassi Racing car usually driven by Jimmie Johnson for his first outing of the season, and topped the timesheets for the majority of the session. His lap was 220.173mph on the 1.5-mile oval.

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Patricio O’Ward (below) for Arrow McLaren SP and Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Sato rounded out the top three, with last year’s winner Scott Dixon in fourth.

The first half of the session was quiet as drivers didn’t feel they had enough tyres in their allocation to run for 90 minutes of practice.

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A number of changes have been brought in for the Texas race this weekend and drivers cycled through those adding to their knowledge from the Texas test at the end of March.

New aero parts are available to use including a small bargeboard and a smaller hole in the floor than usual, which has increased downforce with the intention of allowing cars to follow one another more easily. Drivers practised slipstreaming and following through the session.

Radical Texas IndyCar changes explained
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There’s also a new Texas tyre that has not been raced at the venue, but none of the changes appears to have fixed the track’s tendency to be a single lane around the race track, meaning overtaking could remain difficult.

This weekend’s race follows a condensed schedule. In 2019 there were three hours of practice before qualifying and the race but starting last year when the Texas race opened the season after the coronavirus hiatus a new schedule was used.

With practice, qualifying and a race on the same day in 2020, this year the event had two races but still only one practice and one qualifying on the schedule.

Now qualifying has been cancelled, the order for each race will be set by the championship order. Points leader Alex Palou will lead Saturday night’s race (1910 ET, 1210 BST) to green.

Driver Standings

Pos Driver Team Points R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 R10 R11 R12 R13 R14 R15 R16
1 Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing 549 53 14 33 27 36 85 15 35 51 35 26 5 10 52 40 32
2 Josef Newgarden Team Penske 511 7 40 28 41 32 36 20 44 13 54 20 25 53 30 26 42
3 Patricio O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP 487 34 11 35 51 15 65 37 51 22 24 17 32 41 17 30 5
4 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing 481 35 30 53 35 23 36 25 26 33 32 40 13 11 36 17 36
5 Colton Herta Andretti Autosport 455 8 54 8 30 17 37 16 32 40 18 15 36 13 24 54 53
6 Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing 435 24 26 11 18 20 39 51 22 28 41 51 22 22 27 28 5
7 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 389 26 15 30 36 30 11 31 30 19 28 30 26 7 23 32 15
8 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske 383 18 36 20 28 28 71 18 24 12 16 9 15 25 9 24 30
9 Will Power Team Penske 357 41 24 16 18 19 10 13 28 35 5 16 53 37 17 5 20
10 Alexander Rossi Andretti Autosport 332 22 9 24 10 26 10 27 17 26 30 13 32 13 40 5 28
11 Takuma Sato Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 324 17 28 22 17 14 33 32 18 25 20 5 20 28 18 5 22
12 Rinus VeeKay Ed Carpenter Racing 308 29 22 10 23 51 56 40 12 0 14 6 6 9 13 12 5
13 Jack Harvey Meyer Shank Racing 308 19 32 26 13 7 24 14 11 13 11 15 28 20 33 15 27
14 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske 305 16 19 40 24 24 20 11 10 16 18 8 7 32 23 18 19
15 Romain Grosjean Dale Coyne Racing with RWR 272 20 17 0 0 44 0 8 6 30 26 15 40 16 8 36 6
16 Sébastien Bourdais A.J. Foyt Enterprises 258 31 20 6 11 11 10 19 14 14 19 5 15 31 12 16 24
17 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport 256 6 16 14 20 19 19 9 19 17 6 32 12 26 15 19 7
18 Conor Daly Ed Carpenter Racing 235 14 14 9 6 5 37 17 15 10 15 18 19 19 14 14 9
19 Ed Jones Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan 233 15 10 18 8 16 10 23 13 7 5 28 16 6 20 20 18
20 James Hinchcliffe Andretti Autosport 220 13 12 7 12 12 18 13 16 15 13 35 8 15 5 10 16
21 Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP 205 9 18 17 14 13 11 5 0 0 7 24 17 14 28 11 17
22 Hélio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing 158 0 0 0 0 0 103 0 0 0 0 22 9 0 7 6 11
23 Dalton Kellett A.J. Foyt Enterprises 148 12 7 12 7 10 14 12 7 5 9 7 5 18 5 7 11
24 Santino Ferrucci Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 146 0 0 0 0 0 57 28 20 0 22 19 0 0 0 0 0
25 Max Chilton Carlin 134 10 6 0 0 0 12 8 8 21 12 12 10 0 11 9 15
26 Jimmie Johnson Chip Ganassi Racing 108 11 8 0 0 6 0 6 9 8 8 5 11 0 10 13 13
27 Ed Carpenter Ed Carpenter Racing 107 0 0 13 20 0 66 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 0 0
28 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing 96 0 0 19 15 0 45 0 0 0 0 0 0 17 0 0 0
29 Oliver Askew Arrow McLaren SP, Ed Carpenter Racing 61 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 19 0 0 0 0 6 22 9
30 Juan Pablo Montoya Arrow McLaren SP 53 0 0 0 0 9 44 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
30 Sage Karam Dreyer & Reinbold Racing 53 0 0 0 0 0 53 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
32 Pietro Fittipaldi Dale Coyne Racing with RWR 34 0 0 15 9 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
33 J. R. Hildebrand A.J. Foyt Enterprises 30 0 0 0 0 0 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
34 Cody Ware Daley Coyne Racing with RWR 26 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 11 0 10 5 0 0 0 0
35 Marco Andretti Andretti Herta-Haupert w/Marco & Curb-Agajanian 22 0 0 0 0 0 22 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
36 Charlie Kimball A.J. Foyt Enterprises 20 0 0 0 0 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 12
37 Christian Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 19 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 19 0 0 0 0
38 Callum Ilott Juncos Hollinger Racing 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 8 5
39 Stefan Wilson Andretti Autosport 10 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
39 Ryan Norman Dale Coyne Racing with RWR 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0
39 Simona De Silvestro Paretta Autosport 10 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
42 Kevin Magnussen Arrow McLaren SP 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
43 RC Enerson Top Gun Racing 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 0
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