Andretti pips Dixon to Indy 500 pole
Marco Andretti, the man cursed with the fan-enforced burden of upholding the honour of US racing’s royal family, has achieved something memorable and satisfying for the first time since he won at Iowa Speedway in 2011. He will lead the 33-car field to the green flag for this Sunday’s 104th running of the Indianapolis 500.
Taking pole at Indy is something his father Michael never achieved – as well as famously never winning the race. And in fact even his Andretti Autosport team, while being a six-time winner of the event, has started from the pole just once.
The third-generation driver finished the opening day of practice in second and the second day in third, so the car appeared strong in race trim. Then, when the Borgwarner turbos were turned up from 1.3- to 1.5-bar boost on Fast Friday, Andretti caught the right draft at the right moment to lap the iconic 2.5-mile Speedway at 233.491mph, the fastest lap turned at IMS since 1996, the year Arie Luyendyk set the current qualifying record. Of course, in real terms that meant a whole lot of not much because the qualifying runs the next day would see only one car on the track at a time, and would require a four-lap run, the aim being to keep the second, third and fourth laps as close to the maximum-grip opener as possible.
An abridged version of Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s infamous Andretti Curse appeared to descend upon Marco in that evening’s draw to decide qualifying running order. Those hitting the track first would have the cooler, more favourable track conditions, and car #98 was drawn in 28th of the 33 cars.
Remarkably though, despite high track temperatures, Andretti defeated some very strong performances by three of his team-mates – Ryan Hunter-reay, Alexander Rossi and James Hinchcliffe – to head a 1-2-3-4 for the Honda-powered Andretti Autosport team, with Scott Dixon’s Chip Ganassi Racing car fifth. This should again have worked against him, because the Fast Nine shootout on Sunday is run in reverse qualifying order – ninth fastest runs first, eighth fastest goes second – so again Andretti would have the warmer weather.
Yet on that day, strange things happened. The 2017 Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry set four laps that varied just 0.4mph from fastest to slowest; rookie Alex Palou set the fastest single lap of the session but would see his opportunity for pole ebb away as his Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh entry’s weightjacker malfunctioned; and Hinchcliffe, Rossi and Hunter-reay couldn’t keep their tyres under them for the duration of their four laps. Consequently they will all be starting behind another rookie, Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus Veekay in the sole Chevrolet-powered car to reach the Fast Nine.
And so it all came down to Dixon versus Andretti. Dixon hadn’t won a pole (as opposed to being given it due to a quali rainout) for any Indycar race since 2017, and on that occasion it had come at the Speedway. This time, he again shot to the top of the times to set a four-lap average of 231.051mph.
Andretti’s opening lap was a fraction quicker than Dixon’s, but his second and third laps a hair slower, and
“MY GRANDFATHER GAVE ME ADVICE: ‘LET THEM BEAT YOU, DON’T DIAL YOURSELF OUT’”
it looked to be all over. Yet through shallowing the arc of the turns as he felt the grip going away, Andretti lost just 0.24mph over the final lap, whereas Dixon had shed 0.6. Pole was Andretti’s by 0.017mph!
Asked how close he had been to following the set-ups of his team-mates – the set-ups that had leaked speed so badly – Andretti said he had heeded the counsel of his legendary grandfather Mario, who earned three poles at the Speedway, in 1966, 1967 and 1987.
“I always find I do better just focusing on what my car needs and we kept it really close to home,” said Marco, who now has six Indycar poles to his name. “My grandfather gave me good advice: ‘Let them beat you, don’t dial yourself out. You already know what you have, do it again. Let them try to dial themselves out chasing, right?’ Good advice.”
Aside from Honda’s advantage over Chevrolet at 1.5-bar boost levels, and the speed of Fernando Alonso’s Arrow Mclaren SP car on the first day of practice (fifth fastest) and his shunt on the second day (see feature on p4 of our Indy 500 supplement), the prime talking point was that, even in the context of underperforming Chevy units, Team Penske looked lost in qualifying trim. Josef Newgarden cranked up the wing and drag and delivered 13th fastest time, whereas Will Power went the opposite way, trimmed out, and discovered the tyre fall-off was far too great.
In race trim, all four Penske drivers said their cars are good, but they have much work to do on Sunday to reach the front of the pack at the circuit their boss now owns. So if they need lessons in how to uphold the honour of an iconic name, they can always call Indy’s latest polesitter.
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