Indy road course starting lineup: Felix Rosenqvist continues push for McLaren

Indy road course starting lineup: Felix Rosqnevist captured his third career pole position Friday in the No. 7 Dallara-Chevrolet at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, where the championship race took several interesting turns.

Rosenqvist qualified first for Saturday’s Gallagher Grand Prix (noon ET, NBC) with a lap of 1 minute, 10.2265 seconds around the 14-turn, 2.439-mile layout. It was the second pole at the IMS road course for the Swede, who also started first here in 2019.

Rosenqvist also was on the pole for the March 20 race at Texas Motor Speedway but suffered a mechanical failure on his Arrow McLaren SP car.

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INDY ROAD COURSE: How to watch Saturday’s race on NBC, schedules, entry list

“I felt so calm in the car,” Rosenqvist said. “I think I knew when I did that lap that it was the one. Big, big thanks to the team. Really good car.”

Alexander Rossi was second 0.2765 seconds behind Rosenqvist, the second-biggest margin from first to second on a road or street course this season (Colton Herta won the Long Beach pole by 0.4455 seconds).

“That’s a huge effort from Felix,” said Rossi, who will start a career-best second on the IMS road course in his final start at the track for Andretti Autosport before leaving for McLaren next season. “Good job for him. This is by far the best result we’ve had here as a team. We had a good test here last month and very relieved it translated.”

Pato O’Ward, Rosenqvist’s teammate, qualified third, followed by Penske teammates Will Power and Josef Newgarden, who had been cleared to drive Thursday after being hospitalized last week.

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