Rosenqvist On Texas Pole For McLaren
Grid Talk Reporter 19:23 19/03/2022
Felix Rosenqvist took his second IndyCar pole position and his first for Arrow McLaren SP, as championship leader and Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was just 0.003 seconds slower over two laps in Texas.
Each driver was given an attempt to set the best two-lap average time, and McLaughlin - who won the St Petersburg season opener last month - threatened Rosenqvist who had held the top position for roughly half of the session. Rosenqvist’s average lap speed was 221.110mph, while McLaughlin - who finished second in race one at Texas last year - managed 221.096mph. Rosenqvist has been strong at this track especially since crashing while battling Scott Dixon for the win in 2020 and having multiple incidents like a wheel coming off his car in last year’s double-header causing him woe. His lap was as exciting as an oval run at Texas can be, keeping his line tight but still using every inch he dared which included clipping the grass on the inside line on a sprint to the finish line.
Before McLaughlin shocked late on, Takuma Sato gave Dale Coyne a nice oval opener for the season and looked to have been Rosenqvist’s closest rival. Sato crashed in qualifying and missed the race in 2020 because of that, but made no such error on the way to a run so close to Rosenqvist’s, still only 0.003 seconds behind. Series mainstays Will Power and Scott Dixon jumped into the top five later in the session, while Hélio Castroneves ensured his first oval race since winning last year’s Indy 500 comes from sixth for Meyer Shank Racing. Josef Newgarden made sure all three Penske cars were in the top seven, just ahead of Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay.
Colton Herta and Pato O’Ward have been inseparable in the news in the last fortnight as Herta joined McLaren as an F1 junior while O’Ward said he might look to leave the team at the end of the season. The pair were almost inseperable in Texas qualifying, too. Herta was ninth and the top Andretti car, with Rosenqvist’s Arrow McLaren SP team-mate O’Ward sealing 10th at a track he won the second race at last year, his first IndyCar win which earned him an F1 test in November. Their Andretti team-mate Devlin DeFrancesco impressed as he was the top series rookie in 17th. He beat Callum Ilott of Juncos (20th), Kyle Kirkwood of AJ Foyt (23rd) and Christian Lundgaard (25th).
Jimmie Johnson kicked off his oval career with a career-best qualifying result of 18th having previously only raced on road and street courses for Ganassi. Jack Harvey’s back of the pack qualifying run early on raised eyebrows but his Rahal Letterman Lanigan team-mates both qualified worse and signified an awful day for the team which is usually in with a chance of victory at Texas. Graham Rahal (27th) said the car was “slow” in a simple explanation. He was out-qualified by rookie team-mate Lundgaard. J. R. Hildebrand was 26th fastest for AJ Foyt in his first oval appearance outside of the Indy 500 since 2017.
There has been some encouraging news on qualifying day as the idea of an extra practice session aimed to help the quality of racing at Texas has been well received by drivers. An extra 30 minutes will proceed practice 2 after qualifying with the specific aim of getting rubber onto the troublesome higher line of the track. Seven drivers are expected to take part in that running.
