Josef Newgarden takes First Road America Pole Ahead of Jack Harvey

Reigning NTT Indycar Series Champion Josef Newgarden claimed pole position for the REV Group Grand Prix at Road America after topping a very strong qualifying group.

In a change to the usual Qualifying set-up for road circuits, the field was split into two groups to determine which row each driver would start on, with group two seeing a lot of the big hitters out together. Usually, Indycar would have a three-part Qualifying session, with the top six in each group moving into the Fast Twelve session, before the top six set the top six places on the grid.

Newgarden’s time of 1:45.5191 was quicker than Jack Harvey’s group one pace of 1:45.7290, meaning the group two drivers will start on the inside of each respective row. Both will receive one point towards the championship for their efforts, but Newgarden will start on the pole position for race one of the first double-header weekend of 2020.

Harvey backed up his pace in practice to edge a tight group one with Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Graham Rahal, Dale Coyne with Vasser-Sullivan‘s Santino Ferruci and Chip Ganassi Racing‘s Felix Rosenqvist all close behind. Marco Andretti was fifth fastest so will start the race inside the top ten.

Ryan Hunter-Reay was second quickest in the ultra-competitive group two ahead of practice pace-setter Will Power and Colton Herta, with Dixon only fifth quickest and he’ll start ninth as he tries to take a third consecutive victory in 2020.

The really strong field in group two meant that the likes of Dixon, Alexander Rossi (eleventh) and Simon Pagenaud (seventeenth) start lower than they’d have expected which is the recipe for a great race to come.