Herta takes pole for IndyCar race
Colton Herta won the pole at Laguna Seca for the second-consecutive race and will try Sunday to tie his father as a twotime winner at the rolling California road course in Monterrey.
The win would actually give him the family throne on the overall victories list.
Herta won from the pole in 2019 when Laguna Seca returned to the IndyCar schedule. The race was canceled during the pandemic last year but returned this weekend as the penultimate race in the IndyCar championship.
Although Herta is not a title contender, Laguna Seca is a special track for the California native and his family.
This weekend marks the 25th anniversary of the legendary pass Alex Zanardi made on Herta’s father, Bryan, in the corkscrew of the 11-turn, 2.258-mile permanent road course.
That pass has become one of the track’s most indelible moments and made Laguna Seca synonymous with the Herta’s. Two of Bryan Herta’s four career victories came at Laguna Seca, in 1998 and 1999.
Colton Herta turned a lap at 1 minutes, 10.7994 seconds Saturday to win his third pole of the season, seventh of his career. He has four career wins, and three of them came from the pole, and will seek to pass his father in the victory column with a fifth win on Sunday.
“I think the goal is to beat everybody on wins,” Colton Herta said. “But I think a lot of people respected [Bryan Herta] and thought he was a really great driver. So when you can pass somebody like that on career wins, it definitely means a lot.”
Herta will start alongside Andretti Autosport teammate Alexander Rossi, who last week earned his first podium finish of the season. Will Power will start third because he was dropped behind Rossi by IndyCar race control for a violation during the Fast Six round of qualifying.
The championship contenders were next as only points leader Alex Palou and second-place driver Pato O’Ward advanced to the final qualifying round. Palou qualified fourth and O’Ward was sixth — Oliver Askew was sandwiched between them in his tryout for an open seat at Rahal Letterman Lanigan.
XFINITY SERIES
AJ Allmendinger slid sideways across the Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway finish line to edge rival Austin Cindric for both the Friday night win and the NASCAR Xfinity Series regular-season championship.
The race was Cindric’s to win and the reigning Xfinity champion was four laps away from a second straight regularseason title and a healthy lead for the start of the playoffs. Instead, a late caution gave Allmendinger a shot to steal a sixth win from Cindric and continue his own fairy-tale season.
The rivals crashed each other as the cars crossed the finish line and Allmendinger’s fourth win of the season was awarded because his Chevrolet was sliding ahead of Cindric’s under the checkered flag.
The wreck was a wild way to send the Xfinity Series into the playoffs.
“It’s frustrating to get hit that hard coming to the checkered, but we are battling for the win and it’s Bristol baby, this is what it’s all about,” Allmendinger said. “I haven’t had a lot of chances in my life to win at Bristol, so you get a chance to go do it, you do it.”