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Newgarden Tops At Road America

Josef Newgarden runs through turn eight at Road America. [John Wiedemann Photo]

Josef Newgarden runs through turn eight at Road America. [John Wiedemann Photo]

Qualifying for the opening race of the Rev Group Grand Prix Doubleheader weekend at Road America was won by Josef Newgarden.

The Team Penske driver will lead the field in Race 1 which is scheduled to take the green flag later today at 4:15pm central time.

“This is my favorite car I get to drive at Team Penske”, said Newgarden. While expressing that the condensed schedule of practice, qualifying and the race all in the same day is making things tough on the team, he explained, “I feel good about the car, I feel it was fast out of the box.”

Qualifying was run with the field split into two groups each running a twelve minute session. So, the drivers had one chance to be the fastest driver on the track to win the pole at the Elkhart Lake natural terrain road course.

Felix Rosenqvist led Group 1 on to the track to start the session but it was Santino Ferrucci that jumped to the top of the speed chart early. But, Rosenqvist stormed back to the top until the final lap when Graham Rahal outpaced him only to be beaten by Meyer-Shank Racing’s Jack Harvey on his final lap. Harvey was one of the quickest in the morning practice and backed up the speed. So the top five in Group 1 were Harvey, Rahal, Ferrucci, Rosenqvist and Alex Palou

Colton Herta topped the star stacked field early in the second group followed by Andretti Autosport teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay and current series point leader Scott Dixon. Hunter-Reay then took his turn at the top with Newgarden close behind. Will Power, quickest in the morning practice jumped up to third before pitting and taking on the “red” Firestone tires. After the field pitted for tires, Scott Dixon set the fastest time and leapt over the pack. But the driver that were fast early came back to the top with Newgarden winning the session over Hunter-Reay, Power, Herta and Dixon.

Newgarden’s time of 1:45:5191 topped Harvey by just over two tenths of a second, giving him the pole.

ELKHART LAKE, Wisconsin – Qualifying Saturday for the REV Group Grand Prix presented by AMR Race 1 NTT INDYCAR SERIES event on the 4.014-mile Road America, with starting position, car number in parentheses, driver, time and speed in parentheses:

1. (1) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 1:45.5191 (136.946 mph)
2. (60) Jack Harvey, Honda, 1:45.7290 (136.674)
3. (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 1:45.6563 (136.768)
4. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 1:45.7593 (136.635)
5. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 1:45.8244 (136.551)
6. (18) Santino Ferrucci, Honda, 1:45.7696 (136.621)
7. (88) Colton Herta, Honda, 1:45.8609 (136.504)
8. (10) Felix Rosenqvist, Honda, 1:45.8469 (136.522)
9. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 1:45.9324 (136.412)
10. (98) Marco Andretti, Honda, 1:45.9888 (136.339)
11. (27) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 1:46.1365 (136.149)
12. (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 1:46.0356 (136.279)
13. (8) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 1:46.2980 (135.942)
14. (55) Alex Palou, Honda, 1:46.1260 (136.163)
15. (30) Takuma Sato, Honda, 1:46.5368 (135.638)
16. (21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 1:46.1301 (136.157)
17. (22) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 1:46.7090 (135.419)
18. (59) Max Chilton, Chevrolet, 1:46.3878 (135.828)
19. (20) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 1:46.8114 (135.289)
20. (26) Zach Veach, Honda, 1:46.4707 (135.722)
21. (7) Oliver Askew, Chevrolet, 1:47.1133 (134.908)
22. (4) Charlie Kimball, Chevrolet, 1:47.6862 (134.190)
23. (14) Dalton Kellett, Chevrolet, 1:47.5761 (134.327)

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