IndyCar: Saturday Morning Report from the Sonsio Grand Prix
Today’s weather at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Sonsio Grand Prix is race-perfect. The blue skies have hardly a cloud, and no rain is in the forecast.
Alex Palou, the DHL Chip Ganassi Racing No 10, will be starting from the pole today. The 28 year old Spaniard has more wins than poles in his five year IndyCar career. And given the right setup, he will be way out in front once the green flag flies.
The alternate tires are not behaving as they normally would this weekend, creating a tricky situation for the race which would should see more alternative (red) tire than the primary black.
Palou was asked his thoughts on what is different with the alternative tire.
“I don’t know. I wish I could know. I don’t really know what it is. There’s obviously — it’s tougher this season for everybody, not for our team, but for every single team to be consistent.”
“We’ve seen Herta was P1 in morning practice, and I think he didn’t make it to the Fast 12. We were really fast in Barber and then suddenly we lost a ton of performance.”
” I would say it’s more related to conditions. Like in August we had the same alternate tire
with some people could push on the first timed lap, some others we couldn’t. In May we could all push on the first timed lap, but it was a completely different alternate.”
“Yeah, I mean, it keeps on changing. Stuff keeps on changing, which makes it tough to know.”
Rahal letterman Lanigan’s Christian Lungaard is no stranger to the front row on the road course. He commented on his taking the second spot on the grid.
“I must say I’m a little disappointed. There was only one more guy to beat. We’ve done it before. We’ve been on the pole here. We’ve also started second. That will now be the second time in a row that I’ll do that.”
“But I think as a team, we need to be proud of always knocking on the door when we’re here. We’re always competitive, and yet we’re still trying to find different things and make different things work, which was an approach we took for this weekend because we knew we had a place to fall back to.”
“It’s kind of one of those weekends where we know we can experiment a little bit more and try to improve the overall road course package.”
Andretti Global did not have the best qualifying for their three NTT INDYCAR SERIES drivers yesterday. Colton Herta, the Gainbridge No 26 entry, was fastest in the first practice session but did not convert when it came to qualifying.
Jamie Chadwick, the Andretti Global Indy NXT by Firestone No 28 VEXT driver, scored the best finish for a female driver in the series since 2010. Chadwick finish third in the first race of the weekend.
Warmup is at 11:15 am ET.
The race broadcast starts on NBC and Peacock at 3 pm this afternoon.
Lucille Dust reporting live from Indiananapolis