Will Power took his third and fourth consecutive Iowa Speedway poles and took his IndyCar tally to 70 in the process in qualifying for this weekend’s double-leader, as championship leader Alex Palou claimed seventh and 12th.
Qualifying was delayed by almost two hours after a heavy downpour minutes before the session was due to begin.
It’s a huge weekend for Palou’s rivals to attempt to reduce a 117-point lead at one of his self-professed worst tracks. Qualifying being cancelled for rain would have set the grids on owner points, giving Palou a pair of poles.
Luckily for his rivals, the track was dried and qualifying went ahead. Each driver did two laps and the first lap formed the grid for Saturday’s race one and the second lap set the grid for race two on Sunday.
Power – who reached the Fast Six in qualifying for the first time this season last week in Toronto – notched Team Penske’s first pole of the season and followed it up with a second lap good enough to make a pole double.
As cars ran in reverse championship order, at the time he set his laps he was 3mph clear of his rivals with 3mph splitting second to 15th at that point.
.@12WillPower with a flyer!
Power to the top!#INDYCAR // @INDYCARatIowa pic.twitter.com/6Hm6pus6wF
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) July 22, 2023
He threw his Chevrolet-powered car into Turn 1 at 191mph on both laps and managed to avoid any tyre fall-off to take the top spots. That ends a run of Honda poles that began at the mid-April Long Beach round. Prior to Iowa, Chevy’s last pole was with Felix Rosenqvist at Texas Motor Speedway at the start of April.
For race one, he’ll start ahead of Penske team-mates Scott McLaughlin, and event favourite Josef Newgarden who has led more laps than the rest of the field combined at this track and was furious he was only good enough for third and seventh on the grids for the two races.
Penske took the contentious decision to skip last month’s Iowa test to go to Road America ahead of that race instead, leaving uncertainty over whether it would be left behind by the other teams. That uncertainty was answered in the qualifying results.
Scott Dixon and last year’s Iowa race two winner Pato O’Ward round out the top five for race one.
Race 1 grid
Laid down some laps at Iowa Speedway!
Check out the results from qualifying for the Hy-Vee Homefront 250.
Tune in at 3 PM ET on NBC and Peacock to watch the race. pic.twitter.com/KPWNScKs7S— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) July 22, 2023
Power and McLaughlin again topped the pack for race two but a number of early runners managed to go quicker on second laps and put themselves much higher up the order.
David Malukas rounded out the top three for Dale Coyne Racing. After his podium at Gateway last year, the series’ second-youngest driver is establishing a strong reputation on the shorter ovals. He had also skipped the test at Iowa, where team-mate Sting Ray Robb ran instead.
A huge moment at Turn 1 on lap one almost ended his qualifying but he showed an extraordinary amount of bravery to keep the throttle pedal down and was rewarded for his efforts with ninth in race one and third in race two.
BIG. SAVE. @malukasdavid with the HUGE save. The No. 18 sits P1 in qualifying. pic.twitter.com/rNEylH2iqO
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) July 22, 2023
Team owner/driver Ed Carpenter was the first car out on track and took fourth for race two despite not having driven in IndyCar since the Indianapolis 500, ahead of Colton Herta.
Herta’s Andretti Autosport engineer Nathan O’Rourke had told The Race in the build-up that the team was happy with its recent test where it was fastest and improved tyre wear, with short ovals being a big focus in the off-season.
Race 2 grid