LEXINGTON, OH — Graham Rahal thought that he had done enough to secure his first NTT INDYCAR SERIES pole since Detroit in 2017. With a lap of 1:06.3528-seconds in his No. 15 Dallara-Honda, four other cars had hit the timing line for the final time and none bettered Rahal’s lap.

Colton Herta was the final one to do so. In the final seconds, he clipped Rahal by just .0432-seconds to score his second consecutive pole and 11th of his career.

Herta said typically he doesn’t like to know what kind of lap that he needs to run in qualifying, but on this one, he needed to know.

It paid off.

“Usually I don’t know. I don’t like to know, but I went off before — I think on my third lap before my last lap, so I asked them because I wasn’t pushing at that point, and they told me I think it was like a low 3 or something that I needed,” he said.

“So I did that time, but I wasn’t sure if it was good enough still. It took them like 30 seconds to tell me. Everybody went around again, so it could have gotten better. No, it ended up being good enough, and it was a good lap. I think I did pretty good with it.”

Rahal said it was bittersweet to be that close to the pole, but is ecstatic to also be in that position though and hopes to deliver a win for the hometown fans in Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 (1:30 p.m. ET, USA, INDYCAR Radio Network).

Kyle Kirkwood (1:06.3693-seconds) starts third with points leader Alex Palou (1:06.4166-seconds) lining up alongside in fourth. Christian Lundgaard (1:06.6277-seconds) and Scott Dixon (1:06.9281-seconds) rounded out the Fast Six.

Midseason Changes Pays Off For Herta/Rahal

The last NTT INDYCAR SERIES race weekend, Colton Herta won the pole also. A day later, Herta had the race won too. He led 33 laps on the day and pit for the final time with 15 laps remaining. It was one lap too early, however. The rest of the field pit one lap later and had enough fuel to go to the end without having to save.

Herta didn’t have that luxury. He had to fuel save which is why it not only took him out of winning contention, it took him off the podium too. He’d finish fifth.

In the off week, Andretti Autosport made changes…again. Herta gained his third race strategist of the season with Rob Edwards and Scott Harner swapping spots. Harner to Devlin DeFrancesco and Edwards to Herta.

This one though, is already paying off.

“It’s not how I would like to do it. You would want an off-season to prepare with one person, and unfortunately I never got that,” said Herta.

“It’s nice that they’re open and willing to making changes, and they take everybody’s feedback, and they look it over. They truly want everybody on the team to do their best, so they want to win, and they know it’s not an ideal situation.

“We obviously have the speed, and we just need to put together some race weekends as a whole. Hopefully we can do that. Obviously it’s been a struggle to do that pretty much all year. It’s pretty frustrating to be sitting here and having a best result of fourth and not really getting an opportunity at a podium.

“I’m happy that Rob is here. Like he’s been really good with me on the radio. But it’s not how he is on the radio. It’s all about strategy and what we can do with that.

“That’s the most important bit.”

Herta played it coy on if the Road America debacle was the culprit of the swap, but if you look at what Michael Andretti said following Romain Grosjean’s pole in St. Pete this past March and culminate that with what transpired the last time out, I’d say Road America had a lot to do with it.

“I mean we did have many races where we had very fast cars last year, but we tended to do something wrong, shoot ourselves in the foot one way or another,” said team owner Michael Andretti said back in March after a pole in St. Pete. “That’s another thing we’ve really studied and worked on. Hopefully our pit stops will be better and strategies will be better.

“We really worked on trying to be a lot more detail-oriented, things like that.

“I hope it pays off.”

So far, it’s not. Hence another change.

“I think it had a little bit, but for that stuff, they’re obviously pretty critical on strategists after every race when they’re going over everything and they have their meetings and I’m sure they get drilled pretty good in those meetings if they make a wrong decision, said Herta on Saturday.

“But it’s tough. It’s just like the drivers; you’ve got to do it, and you’ve got to do it every time, and if you can’t, it sucks, but that’s the way it is.”

For Graham Rahal, they’ve made a lot of changes too over there at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. They struggled at Indy for which Rahal was the lone driver bumped from the field. As a result, some internal changes happened. For the second consecutive year, two RLL drivers lined up on the last row at Indy and one car went home.

“There’s been a few changes. Fundamentally there were things that needed to happen,” said Rahal. “As I keep saying, we’re finally being rewarded for the changes. It’s hard to make those mid-season. It’s factual. It’s hard to make a change and immediately see a result. It’s not typical, but we had a lot of good people that I think were being held back a little bit.

“Once we started to unleash them a little bit to realize their full potential, it benefitted the entire program, and so we’re starting to see that, at least on road courses.

“We don’t know what the street course in Toronto is going to present us. Iowa, I think our race car in Iowa is going to be very strong, and we typically are. I’m worried about qualifying there for sure based on the test, so we still have some improvements to make there, but we’re starting to see it. We’re going down the right path finally.”

That’s why Rahal said that it feels good to be this close to scoring that pole.

“I thought we were going to get him there. I knew it was a solid lap,” he said. “But man, I was just walking up the stairs wondering where four/hundredths is. But at the same time that’s INDYCAR racing today. I think the top four of us were only separated by less than a tenth. It’s unbelievable.

“It’s great to be in the front row. Obviously great job to Honda. We’re here for the Honda Indy 200, for them to sweep the Fast Six in their background, and for us, for Fifth Third bank, a Cincinnati based company for our team, for everything else, for me, this is a big day.

“It feels really good. I’m excited for what tomorrow has in store. Hopefully Mother Nature is nice to us and we can go battle, because I do actually feel that our race pace may be a little better that I expected out of qualifying, so I’m excited.”

Rahal was joined up front by his teammates. Christian Lundgaard starts fifth in his No. 45 Dallara-Honda. Jack Harvey starts 12th.

Lundgaard has qualified sixth, first, seventh and now fifth on natural road courses this season. Harvey has his second-best start behind being fourth at Indy.

“Yeah, really nice for the team. It’s been a long time coming,” Rahal said on RLL’s pace on Saturday. “We’ve been beat up. We’ve been bruised. We’ve been knocked down. For us as a team to rebound this way, I could have told you last night after the practice, yeah, I was P20, but I told everybody I don’t think that’s real at all.

“And I told the guys in the engineering room I said, actually I think I’ve got P2, P3 pace and I don’t normally say that unless I’m fairly confident that we do. This morning we went out, ran only one set of blacks, we’re right there.

“So, yeah, I felt good. To be honest with you, this is the first weekend I felt like I’ve had the car to where I can drive it the way I want to drive it, and it’s rewarded me because finally — like this isn’t a long year, and it’s finally to the place I can charge the entries, I can do the things that I like to do with my style, and it’s just nice to finally see the result come.

“It almost feels in a weird way like today you don’t have to drive nearly as hard as you were the last two years combined. You knew the speed was there. You weren’t over by pressuring yourself. You just simply needed to work through it and get there.

“It certainly was nice to see the result, as I said, for the whole team.

“It’s much nicer to — as I said, to be able to drive the car the way I want to. I felt like the last few years, it’s just not to my style. I think Christian has done a great job because he’s more tolerant of the oversteer slides on entry and things like that, and for me, my style, I want to attack the corner. I want to brake late, brake hard, roll speed with good, good rear confidence, and I’ve struggled with that mightily. This is the first weekend I’ve felt like, finally.

“Even looking at my notes from here last year to my notes from this weekend, completely different. I mean, completely — obviously we qualified like 18th last year, so it’s clear. But it’s been nice.”

Rahal isn’t necessarily shocked to be this strong though. He said the turnaround has been coming, which is a byproduct of these changes.

“Detroit was a major disappointment, which worries me a little for Toronto because I think there’s still a lot of questions for us on our street course package, but the road course package, you look at Indy GP, you look Road America, and you look here, and we’ve been competitive,” he notes.

“Again, it’s good to see that, good to feel the energy, feel the momentum.

“I think we’re finally starting to make changes with the car, as I just said, that they’re responding the right way, the way you’d expect them to, and it’s nice. It’s nice to feel that.

“More than me, I think it’s just for these guys, to see the smiles on the mechanics’ faces, those guys, they’ve never had an ounce of quit in them, and they could have for years. To see them excited is worth it.”

Rahal says that Saturday was redemption and gratification to show the world that he can still do this.

“I think I’ve joked with you guys many times, but while most of the world probably thought I forgot how to drive or could never drive, that’s not the reality. Today is just a nice day to remind people. It’s easy to forget,” he said.

“But INDYCAR racing is the most competitive form of motorsport in the world. It’s the most demanding form of motorsport on the teams, the drivers, utilize the resources that you have, which is minimal, and the teams do make sure that you’re on your game at all times.

“So on a day like today, it certainly is rewarding when you can see all of those things come together finally, and it’s not that I needed reminded to myself because I’ve seen it, I know it, I know I can do it, but it’s nice for everybody to see once again that it takes the full package here to run up front and to win all the time.

“I mean, Alex Palou is probably the best guy in the series at this standpoint, but he also has a damned good car. You’ve got to put those pieces of the puzzle together to run up front, and I feel like we’re getting better. We are finding our way, and that’s all we can do.”

---

Honda Sweeps Fast 6

Honda has had a great 2023 season so far. Saturday was their 8th pole in 9 tries. They’re hopeful Sunday will be their sixth win.

They’ve got a great shot. The entire Fast Six on Saturday was swept by Honda’s and it’s big to do so in their self sponsored race – the Honda Indy 200.

“Honda is just better. It’s simple. They wake up in the morning and they piss excellence,” Colton Herta joked quoting a line from Talladega Nights

“No, it’s tough to say. It’s constantly changing, and I think we have weekends where we think we have better power down and they have weekends where they think they have better power down or straight-line speed, vice versa.

“It just felt good. Downshifts were clean, power was great.”

Graham Rahal agreed.

“I just think they’re doing a really good job right now of pushing the envelope again, you know, more,” he says. “And I thought that as Colton just said, there were times this year where we felt a little bit deficient, but the last couple of races I’ve felt like they’ve really started to push really hard again and try to find more and try to help us makes lives easier, and I think they’ve done a wonderful job. And clearly this race is as important for Honda as it is anybody and any other person here or any other company here. It’s good to see them lock out the top six.”

While they lost out on the Indy 500, they did win in Chevy’s backyard in Detroit. To be doing this, they look like the favorites in Sunday’s race.

---

O’Ward, Newgarden Facing Tall Climb

Mid-Ohio is known for its hills. Well, both Pato O’Ward and Josef Newgarden have tall hills to climb on Sunday. O’Ward spun in qualifying early and as a result, will starts 25th. Newgarden, in the same group in Round 1 as O’Ward, also didn’t advance out and will roll off 15th.

By comparison, the guy they’re chasing in points, Alex Palou, starts fourth. Marcus Ericsson is also one spot ahead of them in points and rolls off ninth.

O’Ward and the entire Arrow McLaren Racing team were after redemption this weekend at Mid-Ohio for how last year went when he started on the pole but saw a mechanical failure while leading. Felix Rosenqvist started fourth and finished last after a similar issue.

“Last year, Mid-Ohio brought heartbreaks with our two cars suffering reliability issues after qualifying on pole and running up front,” said racing director of McLaren, Gavin Ward. “You could say that this year we’re looking for redemption.

“We’ve had the pace to fight at the front everywhere this year, so we’re quietly confident coming back here with a focus on continual improvement and enjoying the process of building a better race team week-in, week-out.”

Rosenqvist’s troubles ended his day on Lap 8. He’d finish last in the 27-car field. O’Ward led the opening 28 laps but towards the end of the first stint, he began to feel troubles with his car. They called it quits after 52 laps which left him 24th.

“Mid-Ohio is the exact halfway point of the season. As a team, I feel like we have some unfinished business there because of what happened last year with our cars,” O’Ward said. I can’t wait to get back and keeping building our momentum.”

He finished 24th. With starting now 25th, can he flip the script on Sunday?

“It was my mistake. I just feel for the team,” O’Ward said. “We had a really fast car, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go forward tomorrow, right? It was all on me. I just lost the rear. It got to an angle where I couldn’t save it, and I stalled it as soon as I got into the grass. It sucks. You’re taking these cars to the limit, and sometimes these things will happen.

“It’s probably not going to be the last time it happens, so you just have to look forward. At least this isn’t a race; this is just qualifying. The race is super long, so we can make a lot of spots when you have a comfortable car underneath you. We’ll go forward tomorrow; I have no doubt in my mind.”

Outside of his pole, O’Ward has qualified 15th, 21st, and 20th here. This is the first time all season he hasn’t started in the top 10 as seven of his previous eight tries, he qualified in the top 3 rows.

For Newgarden, this is the third time in the last five races he qualified 13th or worse. He did win from 17th in the Indy 500, but he also only finished seventh from starting 13th on the Indy road course too.

---

Andretti Looks Strong, Split Strategies

Herta being on the pole wasn’t the only positive thing. Kyle Kirkwood starting third also gives them reason for optimism for Sunday. But, they also split strategies in the Fast 6 to ensure one of them had a shot at the top starting spot.

Herta used blacks. Kirkwood ran used alternates.

“I think it was the right call to split the strategy a little bit,” Kirkwood said. “But honestly, I don’t think that (Herta) made the right call. He still put it on pole and drove super well.”

Herta admitted that this strategy was something they were eying all weekend if they got put in this position.

“After practice 1 it didn’t seem like a big enough jump, and it got a little bit bigger in qualifying than it was in practice, but we were in a position where we weren’t happy with our first set of tires that we ran on reds so we didn’t want to run on them and we didn’t want to run on our second, so we only had one choice, and it kind of made the choice for us, and I think it was the right one,” he said.

---

Team USA

It’s the Fourth of July weekend and in Mid-Ohio, the top three spots belong to Americans. Can they hold off the field on Sunday?

California native Colton Herta is on pole. Ohio native Graham Rahal starts second. Floridian Kyle Kirkwood is in third.

LEXINGTON, Ohio (Saturday, July 1, 2023)  – Qualifying Saturday for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio NTT INDYCAR SERIES event on the 2.258 mile(s) Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, with qualifying position, car number in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine, time and speed in parentheses:

1. (26) Colton Herta, Honda, 01:06.3096 (122.589)
2. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 01:06.3528 (122.509)
3. (27) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 01:06.3693 (122.478)
4. (10) Alex Palou, Honda, 01:06.4166 (122.391)
5. (45) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 01:06.6277 (122.003)
6. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 01:06.9281 (121.456)
7. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 01:06.1121 (122.955)
8. (3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 01:06.1926 (122.805)
9. (8) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 01:06.2289 (122.738)
10. (6) Felix Rosenqvist, Chevrolet, 01:06.2455 (122.707)
11. (30) Jack Harvey, Honda, 01:06.7309 (121.815)
12. (18) David Malukas, Honda, 01:06.7596 (121.762)
13. (7) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 01:06.6010 (122.052)
14. (28) Romain Grosjean, Honda, 01:06.1870 (122.816)
15. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 01:06.6307 (121.998)
16. (21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 01:06.2891 (122.626)
17. (20) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Chevrolet, 01:07.0095 (121.308)
18. (11) Marcus Armstrong, Honda, 01:06.2915 (122.622)
19. (06) Helio Castroneves, Honda, 01:07.0503 (121.234)
20. (77) Callum Ilott, Chevrolet, 01:06.3487 (122.516)
21. (78) Agustin Canapino, Chevrolet, 01:07.0816 (121.178)
22. (51) Sting Ray Robb, Honda, 01:06.5157 (122.209)
23. (55) Benjamin Pedersen, Chevrolet, 01:07.3960 (120.612)
24. (29) Devlin DeFrancesco, Honda, 01:06.5834 (122.084)
25. (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 01:11.3655 (113.904)
26. (14) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 01:07.2807 (120.819)
27. (60) Simon Pagenaud, Honda, No Time (No Speed)