Colton Herta earned the NTT P1 Award on Saturday for the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee.
Herta earned the Bryan Clauson Pole Trophy for his second pole of the season in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda, pacing the field by nearly a half-second with his top lap of 1 minute, 13.6835 seconds. Herta led both practices on the 11-turn, 2.17-mile street circuit before qualifying.
Six-time and defending series champion Scott Dixon qualified second at 1:14.2327 in the No. 9 PNC Bank Grow Up Great Honda, joining Herta on the front row.
The remaining order of the top six was championship leader Alex Palou (third), Alexander Rossi (fourth), Felix Rosenqvist (fifth) and Romain Grosjean (sixth). Palou will start ninth Sunday, though, as he will receive a six-position grid penalty for an unapproved engine change after testing last month.
Hometown favorite, Josef Newgarden wrecked hard in turn 11 ending his opportunity for a 4th straight series pole. “Disappointing, I was just trying to make up the deficit,” Newgarden said. “Good to be here in Nashville, though. Everyone has done a great job of bringing this event to this city, and this is the city where IndyCar needs to be, so I’m really proud to be from here. This is crazy cool. I’d never dreamed of this actually getting off the ground. Pretty pumped for Sunday. Just wish we were higher up. Just trying to claw some performance back, and I over-pushed.
“We’ve got a fast car. We can make something of it. It’s just going to be harder now. You can’t wreck and not get penalized. That’s on me. This is a quick weekend. You take a swing at a new track like this, it’s either right on or a little off. We’ve worked really hard at trying to be as prepared as possible. I think we’ve gotten more performance back. We were a lot closer, I just overstepped.”
Newgarden wasn't the only one to have a disappointing qualifying run as Jimmie Johnson will start 25th Sunday after crashing in turn 10 on his opening lap of the session.
Starting Lineup for the Music City Grand Prix / Nashville, TN
(Qualifying position, car number in parentheses, driver, engine, time and speed)
ROW 1
1. (26) Colton Herta, Honda, 01:13.6835 (102.601)
2. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 01:14.2327 (101.842)
ROW 2
3. (10) Alex Palou, Honda, 01:14.6316 (101.298)
4. (27) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 01:14.6646 (101.253)
ROW 3
5. (7) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 01:15.0045 (100.794)
6. (51) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 01:15.3980 (100.268)
ROW 4
7. (60) Jack Harvey, Honda, 01:15.1309 (100.624)
8. (22) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 01:15.1354 (100.618)
ROW 5
9. (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 01:15.1914 (100.543)
10. (29) James Hinchcliffe, Honda, 01:15.3255 (100.364)
ROW 6
11. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 01:15.5016 (100.130)
12. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 01:15.5062 (100.124)
ROW 7
13. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 01:16.1097 (99.330)
14. (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 01:15.4984 (100.135)
ROW 8
15. (06) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 01:16.3479 (99.020)
16. (14) Sebastien Bourdais, Chevrolet, 01:15.6055 (99.993)
ROW 9
17. (45) Santino Ferrucci, Honda, 01:16.4647 (98.869)
18. (8) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 01:15.6379 (99.950)
ROW 10
19. (4) Dalton Kellett, Chevrolet, 01:17.1516 (97.989)
20. (20) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 01:15.6685 (99.909)
ROW 11
21. (59) Max Chilton, Chevrolet, 01:17.5553 (97.479)
22. (21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 01:15.7029 (99.864)
ROW 12
23. (3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 01:18.1899 (96.688)
24. (30) Takuma Sato, Honda, 01:15.8503 (99.670)
ROW 13
25. (48) Jimmie Johnson, Honda, no time, no speed
26. (18) Ed Jones, Honda, 01:15.8770 (99.635)
ROW 14
27. (52) Cody Ware, Honda, 01:18.0928 (96.808)