{"id":30040,"date":"2020-07-03T18:40:43","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T23:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=30040"},"modified":"2020-07-04T12:26:13","modified_gmt":"2020-07-04T17:26:13","slug":"power-digs-deep-to-grab-ntt-p1-award-for-pole-at-gmr-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/03\/power-digs-deep-to-grab-ntt-p1-award-for-pole-at-gmr-grand-prix\/","title":{"rendered":"Power digs deep to grab NTT P1 Award for pole at GMR Grand Prix"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy of the NTT IndyCar Series<\/em><\/p>\n

INDIANAPOLIS – Whether considering raw speed or history, it will take quite an effort to beat Will Power on Saturday in the GMR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Will Power wins the NTT P1 Award for winning the pole position for the GMR Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. Photo by Chris Owens<\/p><\/div>\n

CLICK HERE: <\/strong>GMR Grand Prix Qualifying Results<\/a><\/p>\n

Power earned the NTT P1 Award for winning the pole for the second NTT INDYCAR SERIES race of the 2020 season, setting the pace at 1 minute, 10.1779 seconds, 125.116 mph in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet on his final lap in the Firestone Fast Six. Qualifying took place in steamy conditions, with air temperatures in the low 90s on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course.<\/p>\n

2014 NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion Power drove to his 58th<\/sup> career pole, second best all time and just nine behind Mario Andretti\u2019s record of 67. He also led the one practice session earlier in the day at 1:09.9487.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe left nothing on the table in that lap in the Verizon Chevrolet,\u201d Power said of qualifying. \u201cI knew that (Jack) Harvey had a pretty good time up there, so we put our best set on for the last run, and I just gave it my all. Fortunately, it was enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only does Power have pace on his side for the 80-lap race that starts at noon (ET, live on NBC) Saturday, he also has history for support. This was his fourth career pole in seven starts in this event, and he has won all three previous years he started from the pole, in 2015, 2017 and 2018.<\/p>\n

Power\u2019s scintillating, last-gasp pole dash was enough to knock a superb lap from Jack Harvey from the top of the charts. Harvey, who finished third in this event last year, ended up qualifying second at 1:10.3653 in the No. 60 AutoNation\/Sirius XM Honda.<\/p>\n

Colton Herta was third at 1:10.5197 in the No. 88 Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana Honda, with Graham Rahal fourth at 1:10.5844 in the No. 15 Fifth Third Bank Honda.<\/p>\n

Oliver Askew was the top-qualifying rookie, fifth at 1:10.8404 in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet. Reigning series champion Josef Newgarden rounded out the Firestone Fast Six, not posting a lap time after going off course in Turn 12 during his flying lap in the No. 1 XPEL Team Penske Chevrolet.<\/p>\n

Five-time series champion Scott Dixon will start seventh in the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda after just missing a berth in the Firestone Fast Six by 57-thousandths of a second.<\/p>\n

Three-time and reigning GMR Grand Prix winner Simon Pagenaud had a tough day, not making it out of the first round of qualifying in the No. 22 Menards Team Penske Chevrolet. He will start 20th<\/sup> in the 26-car field.<\/p>\n

What They’re Saying<\/h3>\n

Top 10 qualifiers<\/strong><\/p>\n

1st<\/sup> \u2013 WILL POWER (No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet): <\/strong>\u201cWe left nothing on the table in that lap in the Verizon Chevrolet. I knew that (Jack) Harvey had a pretty good time up there, so we put our best set on for the last run, and I just gave it my all. Fortunately, it was enough. But man, the heat. I just want to jump into an ice bath right now, I\u2019m so bloody hot! We don\u2019t need to be trying to get out first. If you\u2019re thinking of that, you\u2019re going to make a mistake, or I don\u2019t need to be thinking about winning. You just need to be thinking about what you\u2019re really good at, which is for me, driving; and for the crew the stops that they\u2019ve done thousands of. We\u2019ve all had a chat, and we all understand that. That\u2019s how we\u2019re going to win a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

2nd<\/sup> \u2013 JACK HARVEY (No. 60 AutoNation \/ SiriusXM Honda): <\/strong>\u201cMega effort by the entire Meyer Shank Racing crew to put the No. 60 AutoNation \/ SiriusXM Honda on the front row for the GMR Grand Prix. We did well in practice this morning and we have been working really hard to be competitive, and I felt that we were going to have good pace during qualifying. This is the best we have done as a team. The No. 60 AutoNation \/ SiriusXM Honda has been great. The car has great straight-line speed, and we have the pace that we need to carry into the race. The car is very strong on both the black and red sets of Firestone tires. We are so optimistic to follow that into tomorrow and have another successful day.”<\/p>\n

3rd<\/sup> \u2013COLTON HERTA (No. 88 Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana Honda):<\/strong> \u201cWe made a really good leap from practice; we weren\u2019t super special but all right, just outside of the top 10. We made some good changes to the Gleaners Food Bank Honda. I love qualifying around here and I love being in Indy, so its super special to be on the second row of the grid for the second year in a row. I\u2019m hoping we get a good result out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

4th<\/sup> \u2013 GRAHAM RAHAL (No. 15 Fifth Third Bank Honda): <\/strong>“It was a good end to our first day here at the GMR Grand Prix with qualifying. We\u2019ll start fourth, so it\u2019s a really good run for us in the Fifth Third Bank team. The guys did a great job. We had a really good lap in Round 2 to get us into Round 3 and then in Q3 we had one going that was just a hair better, but it still ended up being our best lap. All in all, I\u2019m happy with P4. We can go race from there; we can do a good job from there. Honda has done an amazing job; you could see it. The other guys (Takuma and Spencer) didn\u2019t have the luck we did today in getting through, but they will have a good day tomorrow. We\u2019re pretty pleased with today.\u201d<\/p>\n

5th<\/sup> \u2013 OLIVER ASKEW (No. 7 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet): <\/strong>\u201cToday was more than we could have asked for, honestly. The goal was to move on from Round One of qualifying, but once I felt the car was capable of competing in the Firestone Fast Six, it was game on. The guys at Arrow McLaren SP did a really good job of making the right changes between practice and qualifying. It comes down to that and being able to put down your theoretical best lap together by not making mistakes. Everyone sees how close it is out there in lap times. I felt really good out there, and these are the days I love about racing, when you feel connected with the car and you don\u2019t have to think about it. It just all comes together naturally. Really happy with today.\u201d<\/p>\n

6th<\/sup> \u2013 JOSEF NEWGARDEN (No. 1 XPEL Team Penske Chevrolet): <\/strong>\u201cWe couldn\u2019t really get going there on that lap. I came out of the pits and had a huge lockup to start the lap on the first corner. I\u2019m not sure. It snuck up on me and hasn\u2019t done that all day. I\u2019m sure I have an influence on why that happened, but not 100 percent positive why we got such an aggressive lock-up. We had one lap on the tires ready to go just like Will (Power). I thought we were getting better all session but were a little bit behind him all day. We definitely need to work on our pace, and I felt like we were getting there. You come to this track, and you don\u2019t see the separation of people on track. Everyone is just kind of the same speed. There\u2019s definitely people that shine. Obviously Will and Simon (Pagenaud) have been very good here, but it doesn\u2019t separate people out, so you\u2019re all clumped together. Team Chevy has worked with us all session, and we were pulling forward; they were giving us a little more each time. I think we can still have a good show with XPEL tomorrow and go for a win.\u201d<\/p>\n

7th<\/sup> \u2013<\/strong>SCOTT DIXON (No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda):<\/strong> \u201cWe went through a bit of an aero experiment. We tried some different things up and down on downforce between the black and red tire runs. I don\u2019t think we nailed it maybe as best as we could have, but on the red tires we were pretty good. We were definitely pretty close, though, with the PNC Bank car, and maybe some of the guys we didn\u2019t think would have been up there ended up being up there to challenge. It will make for an interesting race tomorrow, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

8th<\/sup><\/strong>\u2013 CONOR DALY (No. 20 U.S. Air Force Chevrolet): <\/strong>\u201cWe felt like we had a lot of grip on the red tires. For some reason, there’s a big difference in tires for us. On the blacks, the car just doesn’t quite come in the way I like it. As soon as we put on reds, I can really get on it, even on Lap 1. We have to try and bring those balances a little closer together for tomorrow, but I’m super pumped. We’ve got the U.S. Air Force Chevrolet, all of us here together for the first time at Ed Carpenter Racing, this is a great start. We’re right in the fight, starting eighth. That’s all we want \u2013 a chance to be up there and get good points at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

9th<\/sup> \u2013 FELIX ROSENQVIST (No. 10 NTT DATA Chip Ganassi Racing Honda):<\/strong> \u201cP9 is not terrible, but not great, obviously, and not where we were looking to be. I thought the car felt good, but it wasn\u2019t so quick, which is always a bit perplexing. So, we will have to go back and just look where we lost time. I felt like I should\u2019ve put a good lap there in the end, and that was only good for P9. It\u2019s a long race tomorrow, so we have any chance to have a good result in the NTT DATA Honda.\u201d<\/p>\n

10th<\/sup><\/strong>\u2013 MAX CHILTON (No. 59 Gallagher Carlin Chevrolet): <\/strong>\u201cAll in all, I\u2019d say it was a pretty decent day for us. We were up front quite a bit in practice this morning, and then we dropped down and ended up 18th <\/sup>toward the end of the session, but I knew we were quicker than that for qualifying. Surprisingly I came in from my final run in the first round of qualifying and was having a hard time finding myself on the time sheets and then realized I was up in P2 and moving onto the second round with the rest of the top 12. We went out in the second round and the No. 59 Gallagher Carlin Chevrolet was really good, but I didn\u2019t really drive to the grip levels because I was worried about the temperature. I went out and did what I\u2019d done before but tidied it up on the first lap on reds. Then on the second lap, I went out thinking there was no way I was going to go any quicker, so let\u2019s just over-drive it and see what we can do and ended up actually going quicker. Unfortunately, I think it just proved that I didn\u2019t get the most out of the first lap, but that does prove that Gallagher Chevrolet is quicker than where we are, so hopefully we\u2019ll have a good day tomorrow and move quickly through the field to the front.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remainder of Drivers (alphabetical \u2013 with qualifying position):<\/strong><\/p>\n

MARCO ANDRETTI (Qualified 25th \u2013 No. 98 U.S. Concrete \/ Curb Honda):<\/strong> \u201cI guess we shot ourselves in the foot. We had good pace \u2013 I bottomed and fired it off for Lap 1, and then we didn\u2019t leave ourselves time for Lap 2. We just didn\u2019t have time to cover for something like that. But we did have pace, so hoping to build on that tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

MARCUS ERICSSON (Qualified 14th<\/sup> \u2013 No. 8 Huski Chocolate Chip Ganassi Racing Honda): <\/strong>\u201cObviously a bit disappointing to just miss out on advancing in qualifying. I think we had a really good car and finished P3 in practice today. In qualifying, the car was really good, as well, but as you know in qualifying and every session, it\u2019s just extremely tight here in INDYCAR. We just missed out, though, and we think there was a bit more there. I think we have a good Huski Chocolate Honda for the race tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

SANTINO FERRUCCI (Qualified 15th<\/sup> \u2013 No. 18 MOUSER MOLEX Honda): <\/strong>\u201cThe Mouser Molex Honda was still really good; I just didn\u2019t get the front tires to where I wanted them for the first half of the lap. I think we have a good race car, but qualifying did not go the way we hoped for coming off P2 in practice. Unfortunately, it\u2019s basically a one-lap qualifying, and I just missed advancing by about a tenth and a half, which is definitely something to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE (Qualified 19th<\/sup> \u2013 No. 29 Genesys Honda): <\/strong>\u201cWe\u2019re obviously starting a little further back than we\u2019d like to be. The first session was a kind of a baptism by fire, trying to get up to speed with how the team operates and how the car behaves a little differently than I\u2019m used to. I haven\u2019t turned right since September, so a bit of a catch up there. The team did a good job preparing the car, just working at putting it all together on a hot, greasy track. We made a bunch of changes after practice, and you only have two laps on blacks to figure it out before you put on the reds. It\u2019s a tough deal, for sure, but tomorrow is a long race, and I know we are just going to keep getting better every time we get in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

RYAN HUNTER-REAY (Qualified 12th<\/sup> \u2013 No. 28 DHL Honda):<\/strong> \u201cWe had a pretty good car all day \u2013 very competitive. We just tried to be proactive and made a few tweaks on the car in that last outing in the top 12. It just tipped the rear over a little bit, and I started to drive defensively trying to keep the rear in check. Hopefully we can put it together tomorrow. The DHL car is quick; it has promise to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

SAGE KARAM (Qualified 23rd<\/sup> \u2013 No. 24 DRR WIX Filters Chevrolet): <\/strong>\u201cIt was a big INDYCAR first for the DRR crew and I on the IMS road course. So we\u2019ll take P23 in qualifying in our initial day on the track. We are chipping away at it and getting stronger each run. We had a small car issue in practice when we stalled on the track. But we got it back quickly, and I was able to finish the practice session. We are going to have to work some magic in the race tomorrow, but I\u2019m feeling good! Thank you to all the Dreyer & Reinbold Racing WIX Filters boys for the continued hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n

DALTON KELLETT (Qualified 26th<\/sup> \u2013No. 14 K-Line USA\/AJ Foyt Enterprises Chevrolet): <\/strong>\u201cFirst INDYCAR qualifying is in the books. What better place to do it than at Indianapolis? This is the track that means a lot to me and means a lot to the team \u2013 all their history here \u2013 so I can\u2019t think of somewhere better to have that great first experience. It\u2019s definitely been a learning day without having a lot of testing in the offseason, given the big break and all that. Just trying to go hard right off the bat on the Firestone reds. It\u2019s pretty tough and definitely something that I\u2019m going to have to learn and get better at as the season progresses. But I think we\u2019ll be reviewing the day, looking at the onboard between the 14 and the 4 cars and seeing what we can learn from that and make improvements for tomorrow\u2019s race.\u201d<\/p>\n

CHARLIE KIMBALL (Qualified 24thth<\/sup> \u2013 No. 4 Tresiba AJ Foyt Enterprises Chevrolet): <\/strong>\u201cHonestly, pretty disappointed. It was not the result that anyone at AJ Foyt Racing wants, not anything that the No. 4 car wanted, but I still have a huge amount of faith in the team, the guys, the engineers tonight. Headed into the engineering office, we\u2019re going to work on it, look through all the data, talk about previous experiences here plus what tomorrow\u2019s going to bring strategy-wise, weather-wise. It\u2019s supposed to be another hot one tomorrow, so that changes a little bit with what we do, but I have every bit of confidence that come warmup tomorrow morning the No. 4 Tresiba Chevrolet will be faster. And then in the race we\u2019ll roll some strategy dice and hopefully end up inside the top 10.\u201d<\/p>\n

PATO O\u2019WARD (Qualified 13th<\/sup> \u2013 No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet): <\/strong>“We were just outside of getting into the Fast 12 and competing for a spot in the Firestone Fast Six. The No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet is super-fast, and I think we showed that at times throughout the day. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s race and making my way to the front. Congrats to my teammate, Oliver, for qualifying fifth and make sure to watch us both tomorrow on NBC at noon ET.\u201d<\/p>\n

SIMON PAGENAUD (Qualified 21st<\/sup> \u2013 No. 22 Menards Team Penske Chevrolet):<\/strong> \u201cI said this morning we felt pretty good, and I think the adjustment we made went in the wrong direction. It comes down to downforce. If you decide to run less downforce when you let that rear wing down, there\u2019s a lot of speed. I think we might have to do that tomorrow with the Menards Chevy. We\u2019ll see. I thought the tire degradation rate was low, so that might help us to make that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

ALEX PALOU (Qualified 21st<\/sup> \u2013 No. 55 Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh Honda): <\/strong>\u201cI\u2019m disappointed with my qualifying result today. When we first went out on the primary Firestone tire we were really good and were sitting P3 before going back out on the reds for our final lap. I had traffic on the out lap, like everybody, but I was not able to get the tires up to where they needed to be, so I didn\u2019t have enough grip on my final lap and that\u2019s why our result wasn\u2019t so good. It\u2019s all part of the learning experience, I guess. However, I\u2019m happy with the first run we did, and I\u2019m also encouraged for tomorrow because I believe we have a strong car for the race and that’s when it counts the most.\u201d<\/p>\n

SPENCER PIGOT (Qualified 16th<\/sup> \u2013 No. 45 Mi-Jack \/ Shield Cleansers Honda):<\/strong> \u201cOverall, the day wasn\u2019t too bad. I think we made some good adjustments and changes throughout the first practice. Qualifying was just really tricky; it was super-hot. It was easy to miss a little bit of time. I think we have a pretty solid car. It was pretty good on blacks (primary Firestone tires) and on reds. We just missed it a little bit. Hopefully tomorrow we can make a few more changes in warmup and have a good debut race for everyone at RLL with Citrone\/Buhl Autosport.”<\/p>\n

ALEXANDER ROSSI (Qualified 11th<\/sup> \u2013 No. 27 AutoNation \/ NAPA AUTO PARTS Honda):<\/strong> \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ve ever been super-strong around here, so I think 11th<\/sup> is about par for the course for us, unfortunately. We\u2019re trying some different things. We had a pretty disjointed practice this morning, so I think this is a pretty decent result considering some of the issues we had to overcome. It\u2019s going to be a long, hot day tomorrow, but I think we have some team cars that are pretty strong. We\u2019ll look at that tonight and see what we can come up with for the warmup.\u201d<\/p>\n

TAKUMA SATO (Qualified 17th<\/sup> \u2013 No. 30 Panasonic One Cure Honda):<\/strong> \u201cIt was a tough one. Starting off, I thought the car was pretty good. I thought we were hovering on position three or four on the black tires, and then I put the red on and just didn\u2019t get any bite with it; the car started to slide. And the grip wasn\u2019t there as expected, so unfortunately I wasn\u2019t able to improve the time a lot and ended up 17th. But Graham (Rahal) did a great job and had a great qualifying. We\u2019ll go have a look and compare data to see what we can do, and hopefully all three of us will be strong for the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

ZACH VEACH (Qualified 22th<\/sup> \u2013 No. 26 Gainbridge Honda): <\/strong>\u201cQualifying was disappointing. We started practice with a car that we weren\u2019t really confident in. We made really good changes between practice and qualifying. The car felt reasonable. I just think we made a mistake with the brakes for our fastest lap, for whatever reason leaving on the reds. No matter how good the car actually felt, I couldn\u2019t get into the brake zone very well, so that unfortunately cost us. We will work our way forward tomorrow. As a team, I think we\u2019ve always struggled here. We\u2019ve had good race cars, just struggled with qualifying speed as a whole. I think tomorrow will be good for us by the end of it, just going to be a lot of work until then.\u201d<\/p>\n

RINUS VEEKAY (Qualified 18th<\/sup> \u2013 No. 21 Sonax Chevrolet): <\/strong>\u201cIt was a tough first qualifying in INDYCAR. We had a pretty good first run on blacks, then went to reds. I anticipated having two flying laps, but at the end of my first one I caught the checkered. It’s a bummer. I think there was more time the car if we’d had a second lap. We’re starting 18th, which isn’t where we wanted to be, but we’ll make the best of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy of the NTT IndyCar Series INDIANAPOLIS – Whether considering raw speed or history, it will take quite an effort to beat Will Power on Saturday in the GMR Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. CLICK HERE: GMR Grand Prix Qualifying Results Power earned the NTT P1 Award for winning the pole for the second NTT […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":30042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[223,421,22,672,96],"class_list":["post-30040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indycar","tag-grand-prix-of-indianapolis","tag-indianapolis-motor-speedway","tag-indycar","tag-ntt-indycar-series","tag-will-power"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/16CO9821-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-7Ow","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30040"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30044,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30040\/revisions\/30044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}