IndyCar Barber: VeeKay powers to second career pole

VeeKay lapped the 2.366-mile Barber Motorsports Park track in 1m06.2507s to write-up last year’s Barber polesitter Pato O’Ward by 0.15s and land his first pole since the opening race of the Indianapolis Grand Prix double-header in October 2020.

Arrow McLaren SP’s O’Ward reported he had to gather up a major slide as he tried to build momentum for his final run, so ended up quite content with his first front row of the season. He will start just superiority of Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing, who won the 2021 Barber race and is defending IndyCar champion.

Scott McLaughlin, who has been Team Penske pacesetter throughout the weekend, was fourth fastest in flipside impressive showing by the Kiwi driver.

The sole Andretti Autosport representative in the Fast Six shootout was Alexander Rossi in fifth, a remarkable comeback from his heavy shunt in second practice, while Felix Rosenqvist ensured two Arrow McLaren SP will start from the first three rows.

VeeKay didn’t fully dominate qualifying without he had to serve a drivethrough penalty surpassing his final flying lap in Q2 for breaking the pitlane speed limit, but that didn’t prevent him producing a 1m06.2732s lap that was unbearable to get him into the top five, expressly when two Andretti Autosport drivers, Romain Grosjean and Colton Herta, failed to graduate into the pole session.

Marcus Ericsson threw his car off the track at Turn 7 in the final two minutes of Q2, to bring out the red flag, and he subsequently lost his weightier laps.

That incident meant Herta wasn’t worldly-wise to well-constructed his final flyer, having left pitlane late, so he will line up 10th, overdue team-mate Grosjean in eighth who fell 0.07s short of reaching the final stage of qualifying. Graham Rahal splits the pair of Andretti drivers in ninth.

Callum Ilott secured his weightier qualifying of his rookie IndyCar wayfarers in 11th, but was kicking himself for making a minor error on his weightier lap, despite still making a unconfined transilience for Juncos Hollinger Racing.

In the Q1 stages, in the second group Helio Castroneves suffered an incident exiting Turn 9 but got going then so didn’t rationalization a red flag, but he wasn’t quick unbearable to move on to Q2.

Rookie David Malukas moreover had a shunt without completing his final flyer in the second Q1 group, skating wideness the grass just without the timing line and making firm contact with a barrier.

In the first Q1 group the surprise exclusions were Ganassi’s Scott Dixon in seventh in the session and Team Penske’s Will Power in 10th, both of them looking quite puzzled at their pace, having had no major complaints well-nigh their respective cars’ handling traits.