MADISON, Ill — Scott McLaughlin (182.951 mph) scored the pole for todays Bommarito Automotive Group 500 (3:30 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network). However, despite the award, he’ll also have to serve a 9 spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change. That will relegate him to 10th in todays starting lineup.

A whole slew of cars have 9 spot grid penalties including McLaughlin, Scott Dixon, Alex Palou, Kyle Kirkwood and Agustin Canapino. Among them are 3 of the top 4 in points.

That’s why Josef Newgarden, while suffering last time out at Indy by doing the exact same thing, hopes to capitalize. He qualified 19th in the Gallagher Grand Prix but took a six spot penalty to drop him to 25th at the start. That’s why his second place qualifying effort (182.390 mph) will promote him to the pole.

Newgarden has won the last 3 races here and all 4 ovals this season. As being the fastest during Saturday night’s practice session, he’s the heavy favorite.

Colton Herta (181.946 mph) will move up to the front row with Pato O’Ward (181.722 mph) going from 4th to 3rd.

His teammate Felix Rosenqvist (181.557 mph) moved from 6th quickest to starting 4th while Romain Grosjean was a big mover from 9th to 5th.

With track position and pit sequences mattering, starting spots were key here. We’ve seen 9 straight Gateway winners coming from a top five starting spot and 8 of the last 9 from the top 2 rows.

However, Newgarden May have some bad juju going against him.

You would think since qualifying means a lot, the pole winner would have success. In fact, it’s the opposite in Gateway. There’s not been a pole winner here since Helio Castroneves did it in 2003. For Iowa, the pole winner is now 1-for-19.

Maybe that opens the door up for O’Ward. He was quickest on the long run metrics in practice and is good here too.

Chevy has won 13 of the last 15 short oval races as well. He and his teammate have great starting spots.

The thing is, Team Penske has won 11 of the 13 races for the Chevy camp including going 7-for-9 here. Does that negate the bad luck from the pole.

Palou was 5th quick but will roll off 14th. Dixon was 7th but moves back to 16th. Sato was 8th but will start 17th.