Dutch rookie Rinus Veekay will start on the pole for the first race of the IndyCar Harvest GP at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, his first career pole position in the NTT IndyCar Series.
The Ed Carpenter Racing driver put together a lap time of 1:09.690 as a part of the second group of qualifiers. Colton Herta finished second in the group, and will start on the second row in third place.
After finishing on the fringe of the top ten in practice earlier in the day, Marco Andretti put his No. 98 Andretti Herta Autosport with Marco Andretti & Curb Agajanian Honda third in group two with a time of 1:09.714. He will start fifth.
Felix Rosenqvist continued his strong start to the weekend with a top ten qualifying effort to go with his ninth quickest practice spot. The Swede’s lap time of 1:09.800 was fourth fastest in group two, or seventh on the grid.
Like Rosenqvist, Max Chilton and the Carlin team had another top ten spot, finishing fifth in the group to start ninth. Not quite as good as their fifth place practice effort, but nonetheless impressive for the small team.
Group one was the slower of the two groups, due to a red flag with three minutes left in the session. Takuma Sato got beached in the gravel trap between turns three and four, and the long cleanup from gravel being thrown onto the track meant that nobody in the group got to set a fast time on the alternate red-wall Firestone tyres.
Penalized for bringing out a red flag, Sato will start in last place.
Josef Newgarden would top the group with a lap time of 1:10.470, roughly eight tenths slower than polesitter VeeKay. Newgarden’s Team Penkse teammate and GMR Grand Prix polesitter Will Power will start fourth after finishing second in the group.
Jack Harvey, who consistently has strong efforts at IMS, will start sixth in his No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda after posting a 1:10.623 lap time, third fastest in the group.
Alexander Rossi would finish the group fourth, the third Andretti Autosport car inside the top ten. He will start eighth.
Rounding out the top ten would be Pato O’Ward in his Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet, bumping points leader Scott Dixon down to sixth in the session and twelfth on the starting grid as title rival Newgarden starts on the front row.
The new faces of Sebastien Bourdais, James Hinchcliffe, and Helio Castroneves will all start sixteenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth respectively.
Race 1 starts tomorrow, 02 October, at 15:30 EST/ 20:30 GMT.
IndyCar Harvest GP Race 1 Qualifying Top Ten
| RANK | CAR NO. | DRIVER | NAT | TEAM | BEST TIME |
| 1 | 21 | Rinus VeeKay (R) | NED | Ed Carpenter Racing | 01:09.6903 |
| 2 | 1 | Josef Newgarden | USA | Team Penske | 01:10.4706 |
| 3 | 88 | Colton Herta | USA | Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport | 01:09.7048 |
| 4 | 12 | Will Power | AUS | Team Penske | 01:10.5686 |
| 5 | 98 | Marco Andretti | USA | Andretti Herta Autosport w/ Marco Andretti & Curb Agajanian | 01:09.7140 |
| 6 | 60 | Jack Harvey | ENG | Meyer Shank Racing | 01:10.6234 |
| 7 | 10 | Felix Rosenqvist | SWE | Chip Ganassi Racing | 01:09.8007 |
| 8 | 27 | Alexander Rossi | USA | Andretti Autosport | 01:10.6500 |
| 9 | 59 | Max Chilton | ENG | Carlin | 01:09.8193 |
| 10 | 5 | Pato O’Ward | MEX | Arrow McLaren SP | 01:10.7290 |
NOTE: Group 2 occupy positions 1,3,5,7 and 9. Group 1 occupy positions 2,4,6,8, and 10.
You can view the full qualifying results here.
