By David Morgan, Associate Editor
WASHINGTON – Alex Palou and Kyle Kirkwood sit 1-2 in the NTT IndyCar Series standings, so it’s only natural that’s how they will start Sunday’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix in Washington, D.C.
Following up his fast time from practice earlier in the day, Palou set the mark to beat in the Firestone Fast Six with a lap of 56.899 seconds, which would not be eclipsed for the remainder of the run for pole, handing the four-time series champion his seventh pole of the season.
“It’s awesome, super fun. I love these Fast Six like one lap,” said Palou. “Didn’t really work for us in – where was it – Arlington? Didn’t really work for us Arlington. Long Beach we were close, but I think we got third. Detroit, I think we got it with the same format.
“Yeah, really liked it. It was incredible. My car, the Open AI car was super good. Really fast obviously. To get another pole, it feels great.”
Kirkwood appeared to be the driver to beat, pacing both the opening round as well as the Fast 12, but Palou was just on another level in the final dash for the top spot in qualifying, and acknowledged as much afterwards, noting the speed from his championship rival.
“Through the qualifying, I mean P1 in both the first and second group and then the last one, Alex Palou is just a legend and goes faster on his one lap dash than he did the whole rest of the run. He made us look silly out there,” said Kirkwood.
“I’m telling you what, it was not easy. I thought I put a stellar lap in and he was about six-tenths clear, so hat’s off to them. But we’ll race ‘em hard tomorrow.”
Both drivers expect Sunday’s race to be a slugfest, using words like “physical” and chaotic” to describe what we’ll likely see when the green flag drops.
“Managing arm deg. That’s going to be my thing,” Kirkwood said with a smile
“…It is going to be physical, though. This place is very quick. The corners, the grip we had when we first got here, there’s not been a lot of evolution. It’s physical. Steering is heavy. Huge brake zones. Brake temps are very high. It’s a tough place.”
“It’s going to be chaotic,” Palou added. “It’s a street course. It’s new. It’s 250 miles. There’s huge bumps. Huge, huge. It’s going to be tough. It’s going to be chaos. People seem to love it. It seems like the more chaos we have, people just love it, as last weekend.
“We’re going to bring some more chaos. Hopefully I’m not involved. Hopefully I can make it a bit boring.”
Scott McLaughlin will start third, followed by Christian Rasmussen banking his career best starting position in fourth, Marcus Armstrong in fifth, and David Malukas rounding out the Fast Six.
The remainder of the top-10 went to Pato O’Ward, rookie Dennis Hauger, Christian Lundgaard, and Felix Rosenqvist.
Chaos came early in the first round of qualifying, which saw heavy hitters like last week’s winner Marcus Ericsson, Will Power, Scott Dixon, and Josef Newgarden all eliminated early.
Power sideswiped the wall during his run, continuing a day in which he has run into trouble on the treacherous D.C. layout, while Ericsson barely missed the cut into the Fast 12 with his run.
Dixon was hosed by his own teammate during his group run in the first round as Dixon was on a flying lap and appeared to be en route to elevating himself up the leaderboard before Kyffin Simpson crashed in Turn 6, colling with the tire barrier to bring out the red flag.
Simpson would lose his fastest time, dropping him out of the top-six to advance, but Dixon was still one position shy of being able to move into the Fast 12, falling an agonizing one-hundredth of a second short.
Power will start 13th, with Dixon in 14th, Ericsson in 15th, and Newgarden in 16th.
Drivers and teams will be back in action early on Sunday morning for their race day warm-up session at 9:00 am ET, leading into the main event – the Freedom 250 Grand Prix at 1:00 pm ET.
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