NEWTON, Iowa — Colton Herta won the pole position for Saturday’s race of the weekend IndyCar Series doubleheader at Iowa Speedway, while Scott McLaughlin set a new track record to win the pole for Sunday’s race.
The fields for both races were set during Saturday’s afternoon qualifying, with the first lap setting Saturday’s lineup and the second lap setting Sunday’s grid.
Herta’s pole, his first on an oval in his IndyCar Series career, came with a crucial decision.
Herta ran a first lap of 187.655 mph without his hybrid energy system working, and ran a second lap of 186.980 mph, good for fourth to start Sunday’s race. He was given an opportunity to run two additional qualifying laps because of the system outage, and his car was brought back to the qualifying line before his Andretti Global team decided to keep his original qualifying times.
“I still really don’t know what happened,” said Herta, who said his hybrid system never deployed or regenerated during his run. “There’s a lot of confusion — a lot of people saying different things. I haven’t even talked to the team. They said we’re running again, I got in the car, and they said we’re not running again. So I really don’t know what happened.”
McLaughlin, who will start on the outside of the front row next to Herta in Saturday’s 250-lap race, ran a second lap of 188.248 mph. His time of 17.0966 seconds broke the record of 17.2283 seconds set by Helio Castroneves on the second lap of his qualifying run in 2014.
“A solid start,” said McLaughlin. “Can’t be too unhappy with two front rows.”
Drivers expected the partial repaving of the .875-mile oval to lead to higher speeds, and that was evident throughout the qualifying. McLaughlin’s qualifying speed was almost seven miles per hour faster than the pole-winning times of Team Penske teammate Will Power in last year’s qualifying.
Power, who had won four consecutive poles at the track, qualified fourth for Saturday’s race and 23rd on Sunday after his car clipped the wall in Turn 2 on the second lap.
Josef Newgarden, who swept last year’s doubleheader, struggled with his speed in Friday’s qualifying and that continued in qualifying. He will start 22nd on Saturday and 14th on Sunday.
Series points leader Alex Palou will start third on Saturday, and will be outside McLaughlin on the front row in Sunday’s race.
