Tag: Portland International Raceway

Lundgaard Pole Caps Wild Fast Six

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IndyCar photo

In one of the more entertaining Fast Six sessions of the season, Christian Lundgaard snatched the pole from Will Power late, but a penalty will drop him to seventh on the starting grid. Without the penalty the front row would have been a McLaren lockout as Lundgaard’s teammate, Pato O’Ward, finished second and will inherit the pole for tomorrow’s race. O’Ward missed out on a point that would have helped in his pursuit of Alex Palou for the series championship.

Christian Lundgaard and Pato O’Ward. This will not be the last time we see this front row.

Arrow McLaren has struggled in the past in qualifying, but 2025 has seen marked improvement.

Power led for most of the Fast Six as he and teammate Josef Newgarden both made the second round. Newgarden qualified ninth, but has a six place grid penalty.

Points leader Alex Palou was making a charge for the top spot when he spun and tapped tire barrier, relegating him to sixth place

Notes

The second row will feature Will Power and David Malukas. Irony?

After all penalties are served, Lundgaard will start seventh, Newgarden 15th, Kyffin Simpson will start 18th, and Santino Ferrucci will lineup 21st.

It was a disappointing day for the Andretti team, with only Marcus Ericsson reaching the second round. Colton Herta will move up to 12th in the official lineup.

Results

The final warmup session before Sunday’s race will be this afternoon at 4:30 Pacific on FS1.

Lundgaard Leads Tight Practice 1

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Five drivers finished practice within two tenths of a second in the opening npractice session for Sunday’s IndyCar race at Portland International Raceway.

Christian Lundgaard nipped Alex Palou by just one tenth of a second, turning a lap of 59.1037 seconds. Following Palou were Marcus Armstrong, Felix Rosenqvist, Josef Newgarden. Newgarden’s time was 59.3014 seconds. Louis Foster in 13th place is the first driver more than a half second off Lundgaard’s mark.

Several red flags halted the session, the longest for Scott Dixon who went off course in turn 11 and narrowly missed hitting the tire barriers.

In a media availability after practice, David Malukas was non-committal about his status for 2026.

“Same old, same old,” was his response, saying he is racing for A. J. Foyt Racing right now.

Kyle Kirkwood also spoke. He had the seventh quickest time today. Kirkwood is encouraged necause when Andretti tested here a couple of weeks ago, morning conditions were similar to what they will be for tomorrow morning’s practice, and afternoon conditions were similar to Sunday’s race forecast.

Tomorrow is a quick, early day for IndyCar with practice at 9 am Pacific time and qualifying at 11:35 am. There is a finaql practice at 4:30 pm.

I will be back int he morning. Thanks for following today.

IndyCar Announces Grid Penalty

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From IndyCar:

 INDIANAPOLIS (Friday, Aug. 8, 2025) – INDYCAR has announced a six-position starting grid penalty for the No. 8 Chip Ganassi Racing entry for avoidable contact involving driver Kyffin Simpson during the Sunday, July 27 race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The penalty comes after a post-race review of the Lap 1, Turn 6 incident with the No. 60 entry of Meyer Shank Racing.
Simpson was in violation of:
Rule 9.3.3. Avoidable Contact – The primary responsibility for avoiding contact with a Competitor resides with the overtaking Competitor and the secondary responsibility resides with the Competitor(s) being overtaken. A Competitor who fails to demonstrate their responsibility and initiates a maneuver that results in contact with another Competitor may be penalized.
According to the rulebook, a penalty can be applied at the next INDYCAR race if the penalty cannot be served at the event where the infraction took place.
Consistent with an Unapproved Engine Change-Out penalty in the INDYCAR rulebook, the Avoidable Contact grid penalty is six positions on road and street course events and nine positions at oval events and will be served at the series’ next event, the BITNILE.COM Grand Prix of Portland presented by askROI on Sunday, Aug. 10 at Portland International Raceway. 

Black Magic- Rahal Takes Portland Pole on Primary Tires

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The month of May is now a distant memory in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan camp. Graham Rahal took his second pole of the season today at Portland International Raceway. After six years without a pole, Rahal now has earned two in three races.. The team’s 2023 season resume now reads 4 poles and one win. Christian Lundgaard won at toronrto and also has two p[ole positions. Except for the Indianapolis 500, the team has had a solid year.

The decision to stay on primary tires stemmed from the team having an extra set of sticker black tires. The team did not feel the red tires were much faster.

The resurgence of this team since May has been amazing to watch. Turning a team around mid-season is a Herculean task Just one goal remains for Rahal- to win tomorrow’s 110 lap race. It’s nice to have five truly competitive teams in the series.

Rahal elected to stay on primary tires for the entire Fast Six round.. His best lap of 58.3185 beat pole favorite Scott McLaughlin by 0.0340 seconds.

The expected Team Penske dominance of qualifying never occurred. Josef Newgarden crashed into the tire barrier in turn 12 less than three minutes into Round 2. Will Power missed the cut to the final round by 0.0531 seconds. Rahal grabbed the final spot in the Fast Six.

Newgarden starts 12th and Power rolls off seventh tomorrow.

Unofficial Lineup

Lundgaard Tops First Practice

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Christian Lundgaard led a fast first practice sessionfor the Bitnile.com Grand Prix of Portland. as 14 drivers turned laps under 59 seconds. Lundgaard led most of the session and waqs the first to go to the red tires.

Jyke Kirkwood was second quickest, and Alex Palou was third. Lundgaard’s best lap was 58.177 seconds, 15 hundredths of second better than Kirkwood and 18 hundredths ahead of Palou.

The session stopped three times to retrieve stalled cars. Felix Rosenqist went off track just before turn 12 and stopped just short of the tire barrier. Santino Ferrucci spun in turn 11 and stopped on track. Ryan Hunter-Reayspun n turn 12 and stalled facing the wrong way.

Scott Dixon, the only driver with a chance to catch Alex Palou for the championship, was 19th fastest.

Practice 2 is tomorrow morning at 9 am Pacific time.

Results

Portland GP- Early Look at the Schedule

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All times Pacific

Friday, September 1

3 pm-4:15 Indycar practice 1 Peacock

Saturday, September 2 Peacock

9 am-10 Indycar practice 2 Peacock

12;30 pm-2 Indycar qualifying Peacock

5:15-5:45 Indycar Final practice Peacock

Sunday, September 3

10:20 am Indy NXT race (35 laps or 55 minutes) Peacock

12:30 pm Indycar race (110 laps) NBC, Peacock