IndyCar title decider: Palou to start back in 24th

Alex Palou’s 33-point IndyCar championship lead looks under threat in the Nashville season finale as he’ll start only 24th, with title rival Will Power in fourth.

Andretti Global's Kyle Kirkwood took a maiden oval IndyCar pole position - the event has moved from a street circuit downtown to the superspeedway tri-oval last used in 2008 - but that was overshadowed by the championship battle.

Power delivered a strong run, but missed out on a pole position that would have given him an extra point, and ends a 15-year streak of seasons scoring a pole for the series’ all-time pole leader.

“This is about as good as I could do there, you can never ask more than that,” Power, who needs to finish in the top three to have a chance of his third title, told NBC.

How the IndyCar championship can be won

Read more

“It would have been nice to get a pole, but that’s life. Just do what you can in the race tomorrow. You know how these things roll. If not, try again next year.”

The tonic for that lost pole streak will be Palou’s travails.

The top Ganassi driver was Linus Lundqvist in 10th, but Palou couldn’t get close to that and managed 15th over his two-lap average. But then a penalty for taking a fresh engine beyond his four allowed on the season pushes Palou back to 24th.

“The first lap wasn’t too bad, then the second lap was really, really bad,” he told NBC.

“Not what we wanted, what we needed. We need to move from there tomorrow.

“It’s not making it easier for sure. I think we’re 24th tomorrow. It’s time to see what we can do.

“The good thing is that hopefully we can make up some spots. The car was really good this morning. We just need to try to figure out how we can get that car back and see what we can do.”

Palou needs to finish ninth to guarantee his third title.

Scott McLaughlin is the third championship contender, but Palou merely starting Sunday’s race will rule McLaughlin out of contention because five points are offered even for finishing last. After an engine penalty of his own, McLaughlin will start 18th.

Below is the starting grid, and which tyre each driver will start on:

1 Kirkwood (hard)
2 Newgarden (hard)
3 Rosenqvist (hard)
4 Power (soft)
5 Malukas (hard)
6 Daly (soft)
7 O’Ward (soft)
8 Lundqvist (hard)
9 Herta (hard)
10 VeeKay (soft)
11 Dixon (soft)
12 Armstrong (hard)
13 Grosjean (hard)
14 Ferrucci (hard)
15 Ericsson (hard)
16 Fittipaldi (soft)
17 Simpson (soft)
18 McLaughlin (hard)
19 Rahal (hard)
20 Harvey (hard)
21 Lundgaard (soft)
22 Legge (soft)
23 Robb (soft)
24 Palou (soft)
25 Rasmussen (soft)
26 Rossi (hard)
27 Siegel (hard)

Last year’s Nashville street track winner Kirkwood’s pole was exceptional and will help in chasing a first win of the year. It's only Honda's second oval pole of the year, too.

Kirkwood headed Nashville native Josef Newgarden (Penske) and Meyer Shank’s Felix Rosenqvist, in a team which has a technical alliance with Andretti.

Behind Power, Santino Ferrucci rounded out the top five for Foyt.

Juncos Hollinger’s Romain Grosjean was the first driver to take a big strategy gamble. He elected to qualify on the hard tyre in order to save a set of softs for the race. If the softs hold on for full stints, it could be an inspired choice on Sunday. He’ll start 14th.

The two drivers most likely to fight for the final spot in the lucrative top 22 in the entrants’ standings - Sting Ray Robb and Christian Rasmussen - both hit trouble.

Rasmussen - one point behind Robb in the top 22 which awards $1million at the end of the year as part of the Leaders’ Circle - had a decent run to 17th but his car caught fire in the engine bay area afterwards. That required an engine change and a nine-place grid penalty demoting him to 23rd.

Robb - seemingly out of AJ Foyt next year as the team is keeping Ferrucci alongside new signing David Malukas for 2025 - did one lap in the 203mph range but bailed on the second lap due to an engine issue, condemning him to the back of the grid.

Leaders’ Circle points fight

19 Juncos Hollinger #78 (Daly) +15
20 Meyer Shank #66 (Malukas) +13
21 Rahal Letterman Lanigan #30 (Fittipaldi) +3
22 AJ Foyt #41 (Robb) +1
--
23 Ed Carpenter #20 (Rasmussen) 174
24 Dale Coyne #51 (Legge) -15
25 Dale Coyne #18 (Harvey) -38

Malukas (sixth) and Conor Daly (seventh) both boosted their team’s Leaders’ Circle chances with a top 10 start.

Arrow McLaren's Nolan Siegel was unable to take part in qualifying because his car wasn’t repaired in time after a crash in practice.

He hit a large bump - nicknamed ‘Lucinda’ by Marcus Armstrong and his crew, presumably as a take on ‘loose into (Turn) 4’ - which caught out a number of cars across the day.