McLaughlin on Portland IndyCar pole as Ganassi duo struggle

Scott McLaughlin took a third IndyCar pole of the season, as five of the seven championship contenders made the Fast Six at Portland – with Ganassi pair Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson starting outside the top 15.

A recent test at Portland appears to have rekindled Penske’s magic at Portland, as it has been at the sharp end every session.

That makes McLaughlin’s pole even more impressive as he held off Josef Newgarden, who has five wins this season, and Will Power, who is tied for the most IndyCar poles of all time, in the same car.

McLaughlin managed a 58.2349s, 0.078s ahead of Newgarden and 0.190s ahead of points leader Power.

Newgarden especially lamented an error that cost him pole, but now he’ll drop to eighth anyway with a six-place engine related grid penalty confirmed pre-weekend.

Top rookie Christian Lundgaard was a star of the qualifying session, taking third after Newgarden’s penalty, as the best of the rest behind the Penske drivers for Rahal Letterman Lanigan, ahead of Ganassi’s Alex Palou and the Arrow McLaren SP driver Pato O’Ward.

Colton Herta crashed in the first group of qualifying, so perhaps eventually qualifying seventh was as much as he could have hoped for.

Colton Herta turned in too early and hit the inside wall of Turn 1. #INDYCAR

He still was able to advance to the second round of qualifying on @peacockTV. pic.twitter.com/UGRQMIMCN3

— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) September 3, 2022

His Andretti team repaired a toe-link after Herta hit the Turn 1 wall but he then pulled off a brilliant one-and-done lap to graduate to the Fast 12.

He reckoned he and his team had been too aggressive with the balance and he took eighth ahead of Newgarden, Herta’s team-mate Alexander Rossi and rookie David Malukas.

From the Fast 12, Graham Rahal and Rinus VeeKay were the last two to miss out, starting ahead of rookies Kyle Kirkwood and Callum Ilott in a strong session for series newcomers.

Romain Grosjean’s tough year continues with a 15th-place start at Portland. While most of his team-mates qualified better, he was hamstrung by not getting to run the soft tyres in practice after a transmission issue.

Having been really strong in this race last year, Chip Ganassi Racing went to test at Laguna Seca instead – which might explain why it is struggling this weekend against Penske and Andretti teams that tested at Portland.

Both Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson – 14 and 17 points behind Power respectively – will start 16th and 18th after missing out on graduating from group two in Q1.

Qualifying Results