If it’s early May in Indianapolis, you will find Will Power on the pole. Power won his fourth GMR Grand Prix pole and fifth on the IMS road course. Power snatched the pole from Alex Palou on the final timed lap of the Firestone Fast Six. His time of1:09.766 beat Palou by 0.043 seconds.

The pole was Power’s 64th of his career. He is just three behind Mario Andretti’s record of 67.

The entire qualifying ran without issues. Only one Honda, the car of Alex Palou, made it to the final round. The rest of the Fast Six, in order, are Josef Newgarden, Conor Daly, Pato O’Ward, and Felix Rosenqvist.

Some pole contenders struggled during qualifying. Colton Herta and Rinus VeeKay did not make it out of the first round. Herta will start tomorrow’s race in row 7 and VeeKay in row 8. Jack Harvey, who usually qualifies well at this track, will start 9th Saturday.

The 2021 polesitter, Romain Grosjean, starts 10th.

Unfamiliar Territory

Simon Pagenaud starts 20th and Scott Dixon starts 21st. Pagenaud won the pole at the GMR Grand Prix in 2016 and has won the race three times. Dixon has won once and is usually a top finisher. Watch for this pair to move forward tomorrow.

Notes

The scoring pylon showed the time remaining in each round. This is something that wasn’t always done in the past. I’m glad they had it up there.

I found a lot of nice shirts while making a brief pass through of the merchandise shop behind the pits. If anyone has a dresser I can have, I will add to my T-shirt collection.

The speed difference for the starting grid from first to 27th is 1.68 seconds.

Palou had the fastest lap in qualifying, 1:09.411 in round 2.

Thanks for following along today. I will have some follow up on today tomorrow morning.

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