Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist captured his second consecutive pole at Texas Motor Speedway in qualifying for the PPG 375 NTT IndyCar Series race and he’ll have plenty of teammates when he goes green flagged Sunday at 12:15 p.m. ET.
He beat Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon with an average of 220.264 mph, who did 219.972 mph in the No. 9 Honda. McLaren’s Alexander Rossi will line up third in the No. 7 Chevy and has another member of the Bowtie family – Josef Newgarden From the Pinsk team in second place – next to the fourth.
McLaren’s Pato O’Ward was fifth fastest in the No. 5 Chevy, giving the team a P1-3-5 qualifying performance and all three cars in the straight as they approached the start.
Complementing Dixon’s second-place finish, new CGR driver Takuma Sato finished sixth in his No. 11 Honda debut.
“Arrow McLaren has given us weapons again,” said Rosenqvist. “We’ll take it. We’ve always been good here, but it’s a whole new level of confidence this year.”
Elsewhere, Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports’ David Malukas impressed by moving up to ninth, one place ahead of Andretti Autosport’s fastest Colton Herta driver.
Like the Malukas, the AJ Foyt Racing duo of Benjamin Pedersen and Santino Ferrucci were high achievers in qualifying, achieving 13th and 14th respectively, and of the remaining drivers who had reason to be happy with their results, oval rookie Agustin Cannabino qualified 19th. for Juncos Hollinger Racing, ahead of Andretti Kyle Kirkwood, Hélio Castroneves of Meyer Schunk, Simon Pagenaud, Conor Daly and Rinus Vichai of Ed Carpenter Racing, and the entire Rahal-Letterman Lanigan Racing team.
“We are disappointed,” Rahal said. “I just think aerodynamically, we’re missing something big. The car isn’t accelerating. I just think the cars are gritty and slow. That’s not acceptable.”
the next: Final practice, 2:30 p.m. ET
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