Alexander Rossi, Honda Claim Pole in Road America Qualifying
Road America
・Alexander Rossi takes his Andretti Autosport Honda to the pole in qualifying for Sunday's Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America
・Chip Ganassi Racing teammates will line up third and fourth in their Hondas
・Colton Herta rounds out the top five qualifiers for Honda, Andretti Autosport
Alexander Rossi led the way in NTT INDYCAR SERIES qualifying today in Elkhart Lake, Wis., and will start from the pole in Sunday's Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America. The pole is the eighth of Rossi's Indy car career, and his second at Road America, where the Andretti Autosport driver dominated in 2019, leading all but one of the 55 laps for his seventh career win.
Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson make up the second row of the starting grid in the 27-car field, with defending series champion Palou qualifying third, and recent Indianapolis 500 winner Ericsson in fourth. Colton Herta rounded out the top five qualifiers today for Honda in his Andretti Autosport entry.
Fast Facts
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Honda Indy car drivers have scored eight victories at Road America, most recently in last year's NTT INDYCAR SERIES race, won by eventual series champion Alex Palou in his Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.
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In 2020, Honda drivers scored a clean sweep of both rounds of a doubleheader race weekend. Scott Dixon won Saturday's opening race en route to his sixth drivers' title; with his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Felix Rosenqvist claiming victory in Sunday's event.
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In 2019, Alexander Rossi dominated at Road America leading 54 of the 55 laps for a crushing, 28-second margin of victory in his Andretti Autosport Honda.
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Dixon provided his own master class in race craft in 2017, taking charge midway through the 220-mile contest and fending off all challengers to claim the win.
I think we saw with last year's [qualifying] results here that [Firestone primary 'Black' compound] tires were the way to go, so I think that's just kind of a trend here. But it was an amazing job here all weekend by the Napa Auto Parts/AutoNation Honda team. It's been a long time since we've been in this position [on the pole] so it's amazing. It was so close today. We'll enjoy it now, but we've still got a job to do [in the race] tomorrow. I think we're really strong on the primaries, so huge thanks to the team for all their efforts this weekend. It's a good boost for everyone, and we'll enjoy it going into tomorrow.
Qualifying [third] is good, we were close [to claiming the pole], that was a good job by Alex [Rossi] and the 27 team. We were on the right strategy using the [Firestone primary compound] Black tires, it's just that Alex [Rossi] was able to get a bit more time out of them than we could. They made it happen. But we've been improving the car every single time we've gone out this weekend and this is an amazing starting position compared to last week [when Palou started 18th in Detroit].
