Rahal ends six-year pole position drought at Indianapolis

Six years since the last time he started on pole position in the IndyCar series, Graham Rahal will start up front once again at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Rahal will lead an all-Rahal Letterman Lanigan front row in tomorrow’s 85-lap race around the grand prix course, with Toronto Indy winner Christian Lundgaard starting alongside him.

Lundgaard was holding onto provisional pole in the waning seconds of the Fast Six session, before Rahal surpassed him after the chequered flag and took the top spot with a time of 1’10.113, a tenth of a second clear of his Danish team mate.

For Rahal, it’s his first IndyCar pole since the first race of the 2017 Detroit Grand Prix. Rahal went on to sweep that double-header weekend, which is also his most recent IndyCar victory.

It was also a much happier return to the Speedway for Rahal, less than three months after he was bumped from the field at the Indianapolis 500 – on a day where all three of RLL’s full-time runners had to go through the Last Row Shoot-out. Rahal eventually made it into the race as a substitute for the injured Stefan Wilson.

Behind Lundgaard, who won pole at the same track in May, an all-McLaren second row sees Alexander Rossi third and Pato O’Ward fourth.

Devlin DeFrancesco, who has looked less and less likely to return to Andretti Autosport next season, recorded his best-ever IndyCar qualifying result in fifth place, ahead of Romain Grosjean in sixth.

Championship leader and Indianapolis GP winner Alex Palou missed the cut to fight for pole position in the second round, but he will start eighth tomorrow, alongside his Chip Ganassi Racing team mate Marcus Armstrong.

Crucially, Palou will start 11 places ahead of his nearest title rival, Josef Newgarden, who hadn’t been able to get up to speed since the morning’s practice session. Newgarden, visibly frustrated with his result, will start 19th.

Palou enters this weekend with an 84-point lead over Newgarden with four races left this season.

Jack Harvey finished eighth in qualifying but will take a six-place grid penalty for an unapproved engine change following the Music City Grand Prix last week, which demoted him to 14th on the grid and allowed Palou and several others to gain one place on the grid.

Helio Castroneves and David Malukas are also serving identical six-place grid penalties which will demote Castroneves to 18th on the grid, and Malukas to 27th and last, barring any additional grid penalties that may come before tomorrow.

This means Felix Rosenqvist will start ninth, ahead of Scott McLaughlin, Colton Herta, and rookie Linus Lundqvist, in his second race filling in for an injured Simon Pagenaud.

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Brickyard GP Provisional Starting Grid

Position	Car	Driver	Team	Engine
1	15	Graham Rahal	RLL	Honda
2	45	Christian Lundgaard	RLL	Honda
3	7	Alexander Rossi	McLaren	Chevrolet
4	5	Pato O’Ward	McLaren	Chevrolet
5	29	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti	Honda
6	28	Romain Grosjean	Andretti	Honda
7	11	Marcus Armstrong	Ganassi	Honda
8	10	Alex Palou	Ganassi	Honda
9	6	Felix Rosenqvist	McLaren	Chevrolet
10	3	Scott McLaughlin	Penske	Chevrolet
11	26	Colton Herta	Andretti	Honda
12	60	Linus Lundqvist	Meyer Shank	Honda
13	27	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti	Honda
14	30	Jack Harvey	RLL	Honda
15	9	Scott Dixon	Ganassi	Honda
16	12	Will Power	Penske	Chevrolet
17	8	Marcus Ericsson	Ganassi	Honda
18	06	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank	Honda
19	2	Josef Newgarden	Penske	Chevrolet
20	21	Rinus VeeKay	Carpenter	Chevrolet
21	14	Santino Ferrucci	Foyt	Chevrolet
22	20	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Carpenter	Chevrolet
23	78	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger	Chevrolet
24	51	Sting Ray Robb	Coyne/RWR	Honda
25	77	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger	Chevrolet
26	55	Benjamin Pedersen	Foyt	Chevrolet
27	18	David Malukas	Coyne/HMD	Honda

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