Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session from The Thermal Club was a tricky affair, as all 27 IndyCar drivers struggled to get grip into their soft Firestone tires.
The drivers that looked quick earlier in the weekend continued their good form, however, and it was Pato O’Ward that laid down the fastest lap when it counted most.
O’Ward completed a circuit of the 3.067-mile course in 1:39.9567, breaking under the 100-second barrier on his final run with used soft tires.
READ MORE: IndyCar Thermal Club – Full Qualifying Results
His qualifying run marked an impressive turnaround from the opening round in St. Petersburg where the popular Mexican driver qualified all the way down in 23rd.
Starting alongside on Sunday will be his Arrow McLaren team-mate Christian Lundgaard, the first time the team has earned a front row lockout in IndyCar.
The Danish driver had looked like the one to beat for much of the weekend, but he was 0.168 seconds off the pace in the final Firestone Fast 6 round.
Alex Palou escaped a penalty for blocking O’Ward in the second round, allowing him to advance to the final round alongside him.
He could not quite get his used Firestone tires to hook up as well as the others, however, and he earned the third starting position.
Colton Herta and Marcus Ericsson represented Andretti Global in the final round, earning the fourth and fifth grid positions respectively.
Alexander Rossi advanced to the final round, but chose to only make one single run. That ended up not working as well as he hoped, but by advancing as far as he did he gave his ECR crew a start from the sixth position.
Louis Foster was the only rookie to advance out of the first round, and he put his #45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda into the 10th grid position.
Santino Ferrucci missed out on transferring out of the first round by a mere 0.0023 seconds, meaning he will start from the seventh row.
Uncharacteristic problems
Starting down near the rear of the field will be all three Team Penske drivers.
In what was a rare across-the-board disappointment for the legendary team, the trio of skilled drivers were all knocked out in the first round.
Josef Newgarden earned the highest grid position with a 17th place effort, with Will Power and Scott McLaughlin only able to manage the 21st and 25th positions respectively.
Even from television cameras, it was obvious that all three of the team’s cars were sliding around the track surface. It seems the softer alternate tire compound does not match well with the setup philosophy employed by the drivers.
Robert Shwartzman was also relegated to the rear of the starting grid, although his previous problems this weekend all but guaranteed that outcome.
The rookie turned his first flying lap of the weekend in qualifying, turned four laps in total, but was over 1.5 seconds slower than every other driver in the field.
Shwartzman will start from the 27th position in his PREMA Racing #83 entry, and will simply look to turn laps and stay out of trouble on Sunday.
His more experienced team-mate Callum Ilott will start from 22nd, and will similarly look to climb forward during the race.
Sunday’s 65-lap race begins at noon local, 3:00 PM eastern.
