Newgarden snatches last-second Detroit Grand Prix pole

Josef Newgarden took pole position for the IndyCar Detroit Grand Prix thanks to a last-second effort in the Fast Six stage of qualifying.

Newgarden will lead the field of 26 cars to the green flag in tomorrow’s 70-lap race, the final Detroit Grand Prix to be held at the Belle Isle Street Circuit as the race will move to the International Riverfront district in downtown Detroit next year.

His best lap of 1’15.215 came right after the chequered flag fell, knocking Takuma Sato off the provisional pole position. Newgarden becomes the seventh different pole winner in seven races this season.

Sato will line up second, sharing the front row with Newgarden. The two Meyer Shank cars of Simon Pagenaud and Hélio Castroneves will start third, and fourth, respectively. McLaren SP driver Pato O’Ward will start fifth, and rookie David Malukas was the story of qualifying, making the Fast Six for the first time and ending up sixth on the grid just days after controversially missing out on the Indy 500 Rookie of the Year award.

Indianapolis 500 winner and IndyCar Series points leader Marcus Ericsson will start eighth in car number eight, sharing the fourth row with Colton Herta, who qualified seventh. An all-Scott fifth row follows, with Scott Dixon in ninth, and Scott McLaughlin in tenth.

Transfer market protagonist Alexander Rossi, who agreed to join McLaren SP next season, starts 11th. Romain Grosjean had a hard crash through turns 12 and 13 to end round two of qualifying: The resulting red flag caused the deletion of his two fastest laps, meaning Grosjean will start 12th.

The other major player in this week’s IndyCar silly season, Kyle Kirkwood, qualified 15th after leading the way in first practice. However, he crashed out of second practice earlier today, and will now go on and race in the IMSA SportsCar Championship tonight with a minor injury to his right hand – before starting tomorrow’s race.

Further back in the pack, Felix Rosenqvist was penalized during round one of qualifying for impeding Jimmie Johnson as he exited pit lane for his final attempt. His fastest laps in the session were deleted, and he will start from the final row of the grid in 25th. Dalton Kellett did not take part in qualifying after a heavy crash at the end of second practice, and because of a six-place grid penalty for an unapproved engine change at the Indy 500, Kellett will start 26th.

Green flag time for the Detroit Grand Prix is tomorrow at 20:45 BST.

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Grand Prix of Detroit qualifying results

Position	Car	Driver	Team	Engine
1	2	Josef Newgarden	Penske	Chevrolet
2	51	Takuma Sato	Coyne/RWR	Honda
3	60	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank	Honda
4	6	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank	Honda
5	5	Pato O’Ward	McLaren SP	Chevrolet
6	18	David Malukas	Coyne/HMD	Honda
7	26	Colton Herta	Andretti	Honda
8	8	Marcus Ericsson	Ganassi	Honda
9	9	Scott Dixon	Ganassi	Honda
10	3	Scott McLaughlin	Penske	Chevrolet
11	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti	Honda
12	28	Romain Grosjean	Andretti	Honda
13	20	Conor Daly	Carpenter	Chevrolet
14	21	Rinus VeeKay	Carpenter	Chevrolet
15	14	Kyle Kirkwood	Foyt	Chevrolet
16	12	Will Power	Penske	Chevrolet
17	77	Santino Ferrucci	Juncos Hollinger	Chevrolet
18	10	Alex Palou	Ganassi	Honda
19	30	Christian Lundgaard	RLL	Honda
20	45	Jack Harvey	RLL	Honda
21	29	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Steinbrenner	Honda
22	48	Jimmie Johnson	Ganassi	Honda
23	15	Graham Rahal	RLL	Honda
24	11	Tatiana Calderon	Foyt	Chevrolet
25	7	Felix Rosenqvist	McLaren SP	Chevrolet
26	4	Dalton Kellett	Foyt	Chevrolet

IndyCar

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• Ilott gets first seat in Prema’s new IndyCar team
• Palou clinches third IndyCar title as Herta passes O’Ward to win finale
• Kirkwood takes pole for finale, Palou only 24th after penalty
• Ferrucci secures second Foyt IndyCar seat for 2025 alongside Malukas

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