INDIANAPOLIS — Reigning IndyCar champion Alex Palou will lead the field to the green flag during Saturday's Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Palou scored the pole with a time of 1:09.000, while Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver Christian Lundgaard just missed out on the top spot by roughly nine one hundredths of a second.
"I must say I'm a little disappointed," said Lundgaard after qualifying. "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."
In addition to being the reigning series champion, Palou also enters the weekend as the defending winner of the Grand Prix. However, the Spaniard said he didn't expect to have as much pace as he did.
"Today we started a bit slow and struggled a little bit with the car balance in both practices," said Palou after qualifying. "Yeah, kind of surprised that we are here, but at the same time, we are enjoying the moment and looking forward to tomorrow starting on pole."
Team Penske teammates Will Power and Josef Newgarden, who are without their regular engineers and strategists this week, qualified third and fourth respectively.
"It was a little different, just a new voice in my head that I haven't had in a little while, but they did a great job, and it's awesome to be here at the speedway," said Newgarden about having a different strategist this weekend.
Tim Cindric, who normally serves as Newgarden's strategist, was suspended earlier this week following an internal investigation into the team's push-to-pass cheating scandal.
"It just feels good to be here, and we've got the team. It's a little different than what it looked like last year but not that different. We're here as a team, and we're ready to go," said Newgarden.
Scott McLaughlin, the third Team Penske entry, was eliminated in round one of group qualifying and will lineup 13th on Saturday afternoon.