The defeat of the NTT Indycar series will be easy to follow on Sunday at the Weathertech Raceway Laguna SECA. The two best championship candidates will start the Grand Prix of the Java House of Monterey together in the front row.
Alex Palou de Chip Ganassi Racing and Pato O’Ward by Arrow McLaren will be 1-2 when the green flag falls shortly after 3 p.m. (Fox, Fox Sports App, Fox Deportes, Indycar Radio Network). They are the winners of the last three races of the season and four of the last five.
SEE: Qualification results
The best Tour de Palou in Firestone Fast Six of Saturday was timed at 1 minute, 8.3413 seconds, and this time was almost three tenths of a second faster than the fastest visit to the 11-tour road from 2.238 miles. The Tour of O’Ward was 1: 08.6280.
O’Ward described Palou’s performance in No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda “a monster tour”.
“It was incredible,” said Palou. “Honestly, the car was incredible (all weekend). I felt that we had a ton of rhythm, like the whole year. Everyone at CGR did a great job, which made me look good on the right track.”
Last year, Palou won this race for the second time in three years, and its average finish in four races is 1.8. He won the race in 2022 over 30 seconds. The average o’ward arrival on this track is 7.5.
A victory on Sunday would be almost the third consecutive serial championship of Palou and fourth in five years. He has an advance of 99 points heading for the last four races of the season, and winning the post will add another point to his accumulation.
Palou already has seven victories in the first 13 races of the season, and he heads for history. The record for most of the victories in the series in a season has taken place since Aj Foyt won 10 of the 13 races in 1964. Six years later, Al User equaled this total in 18 races. Only eight pilots won eight or more races during a given season.
The NTT P1 prize was the fifth of the Palou season, equaling its personal brand taking place in 2023.
O’Ward was happy to win his third start to the season at first glance – he was on the post at the thermal club at the end of March and qualified third for Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge in May – but he knows that a massive challenge awaits him.
“(Palou) is the guy we have to beat, and he starts before us,” said the driver of N ° 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet. “We will see what tomorrow has in store (for us).”
Like Palou, O’Ward has objectives to pursue. He set a personal brand last year with three racing victories; He has two so far this season. He also seeks his first title at this level after winning the Indy NXT championship by Firestone in 2018.
Scott Dixon of Chip Ganssi Racing, who won this event in 2023, is one of the four pilots to have won races this season. But the driver of the PNC Bank N ° 9, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, has not progressed for the second qualification round and will start the race from the 19th position. Only once in the 27 previous races of the series, the winner started outside the Top 11. Max Papis won the 2001 race from the 25th position.
Palou, Kyle Kirkwood by Andretti Global (three victories) and O’Ward are the other winners of the race this season. Kirkwood will start the 18th in the Honda of Bullion JM n ° 27 after having lowered the famous cork shooting corner from the track.
The only incident to be noted in qualification occurred when Felix Rosenqvist by Meyer Shank Racing W / Curb-Agajanian went widely at the end of Tour 5 at the end of the second round. The driver of the Meyer n ° 60 rod race with Curb-Agajanian was underway to pass to the Firestone Fast Six until the slide in the gravel pit requires a local yellow, which by the rule disqualified the fastest tour of the Swedish. He will start Sunday’s race from 12th position.
“I entered (turn 5) a little hard and I couldn’t save him,” said the winner of the event in 2023. “It’s unfortunate. Yes, that’s what it is.”
The qualifications were the first session of the day of the NTT Indycar series, because morning training was canceled in the middle of the persistent fog in the Monterey peninsula. With the same time expected Sunday morning, Indycar officials reprogrammed the third and last training of the weekend at the end of this day.
