NASCAR on TV this week

Will Power Makes History with 67th IndyCar Pole in St. Louis

Long live the qualifying king.

Friday (Aug. 19) at World Wide Technology Raceway, Team Penske’s Will Power claimed his record-tying 67th career pole in the NTT IndyCar Series, tying Mario Andretti’s all-time record with a two-lap average speed of 182.727 mph,

As the championship leader, Power had to watch all 24 other drivers make their runs, before his two-lap blast bested second-place Marcus Ericsson‘s effort by nearly seven-tenths of a mile per hour, earning himself an additional championship point for good measure.

“Amazing, amazing,” Power told NBC after claiming his fourth NTT P1 Award of the season. “I’m still kind of shaking because I tried to go wide open in [turn] three and four there. It got halfway around wide open and then it wasn’t going to make it, so then I downshifted and kind of floated out towards the wall … there was nothing left on the table, put it that way.”

 

Championship contenders Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin and Alex Palou complete the top five. Of the 10 drivers still eligible for the title, seven will start from inside the top 10.

For much of the session, drivers chased early runner Takuma Sato‘s average speed of 180.048, but after Arrow McLaren SP’s Pato O’Ward jumped to the top, the speeds picked up.

O’Ward’s McLaren teammate Felix Rosenqvist was the only casualty of the session, the Swede losing control of his No. 7 Chevrolet exiting turn two before sliding slowly into the inside tire barrier on the backstretch. Rosenqvist will start Saturday’s race in last place, but he was able to avoid serious damage to his car.

Andretti Autosport’s Romain Grosjean put in a speed good enough for eighth place, but a penalty accrued for an engine change following the most recent race in Nashville means the Frenchman will take the green flag from 17th.

Final Qualifying Results

  1. Will Power
  2. Marcus Ericsson
  3. Josef Newgarden
  4. Scott McLaughlin
  5. Alex Palou
  6. Pato O’Ward
  7. Takuma Sato
  8. Romain Grosjean (grid drop)
  9. Devlin DeFrancesco
  10. Alexander Rossi
  11. Colton Herta
  12. David Malukas
  13. Simon Pagenaud
  14. Jack Harvey
  15. Conor Daly
  16. Graham Rahal
  17. Helio Castroneves
  18. Christian Lundgaard
  19. Kyle Kirkwood
  20. Jimmie Johnson
  21. Callum Illott
  22. Rinus VeeKay
  23. Dalton Kellett
  24. Ed Carpenter
  25. Felix Rosenqvist

The Bommarito Automotive Group 500 airs Saturday Aug. 20 at 6 p.m. ET on USA and Peacock.

About the author

Jack Swansey primarily covers open-wheel racing for Frontstretch and co-hosts The Pit Straight Podcast,but you can also catch him writing about NASCAR, sports cars, and anything else with four wheels and a motor. Originally from North Carolina and now residing in Los Angeles, he joined the site as Sunday news writer midway through 2022 and is an avid collector (some would say hoarder) of die-cast cars.

Sign up for the Frontstretch Newsletter

A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.