Throughout the 2021 season, the main flaw of Scott McLaughlin in his rookie year in IndyCar it was qualifying. His lack of ‘feeling’ with the soft tire condemned him on most circuits, and only on two occasions did he manage to qualify in the top ten, one of them on an oval. Seeking to subvert the lack of expectations that had been with him this season, the New Zealander from Penske has started with a bang in St. Petersburg his first pole position in the IndyCar Series.
McLaughlin got off to a flying start in free practice as the first driver in history to go under a minute in St. Petersburg. In qualifying, he finished second in the first group and got into the Fast 6 with the third fastest time, before storming back to first position in the final session with a great time of 59.482 seconds despite using used tires. With this, he managed to beat the two men who seemed destined to fight for pole, Will Power and Colton Hertawho will come to his side after making the best times of the day.
Loading tweet…
1497643798385545220
Both had led the groups in the first round and commanded the Fast 12, in both cases with Power in front. your time of 59,346 in that second envite it is registered as new track record, surpassing by seven tenths the one obtained by Jordan King in the 2018 edition. In the final session he was three tenths of that time, enough to leave Herta on the sidelines. Fourth, the reborn appeared Rinus VeeKaywho surpassed by only one thousandth a Romain Grosjean that he was always somewhat behind and that he seemed somewhat more contained after the incident in the free seconds in which he rammed Takuma Sato from behind in an avoidable way.
The Shank team completed the Fast 6 with Simon Pagenaudwhich got into the same at the expense of the Ganassi pilots. Although they managed to find some rhythm during the day, it wasn’t enough to get them into pole contention despite sacrificing more sets of softs, with both Scott Dixon and Marcus Ericsson sharing the fourth row. Something worse happened to Alex Palouwho managed to get into the Fast 12 by a hair with 59.895 and worsened a few hundredths to qualify 10th, the same position it held on the grid at St. Petersburg in 2021. A lesser evil considering the serious accident he suffered at the end of the second free practice session, managing to reach the qualifying round with just enough.
In between stood Joseph Newgardensomewhat more discreet than expected in ninth place and with traffic problems, while on the outskirts of the top 10 were Graham Rahal and a Kyle Kirkwood that fueled the hopes that existed in his figure after getting Foyt’s #14 in the Fast 12. Almost more surprising than that was the fact that Dalton Kelletthis much-maligned teammate, who had never ranked higher than 19th in his previous 24 races, came very close to unseating Palou from the Fast 12, thereby occupying 14th place on the grid.
Some prominent names were left out at the first change, with the 13th position of alexander rossi and the 16th of Duck O’Ward as the most newsworthy. The Mexican damaged his suspension in an impact against the wall at Turn 9 and further compromised his first race of the year. From behind, Tatiana Calderón managed to improve just enough to beat Jimmie Johnson, although the American was hampered by David Malukas who lost his best times. All the pieces on the board are in place for an intense Grand Prix (Sunday, 6:30 p.m. in Spain) in which McLaughlin will seek to remove his sanbenitos and begin to display the dominant gene which he showed in Australia.
ST. GP FAST 6 RESULTS PETERSBURG
(full results coming soon)
Photos: IndyCar Media