Bourdais Runs Second for Honda in St. LouisQualifying

 

MADISON, Ill. (August 23, 2019) – Sebastien Bourdais led the Honda field today at World Wide Technology Racewayin qualifying for Saturday night’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500.  The outside front row start is the best of the 2019 season for the veteran Bourdais and his best qualifying performance at 1.25-mile WWT oval, located just outside of St. Louis.

 

Takuma Sato rebounded from his opening-lap crash last week at Pocono Raceway to qualify fifth in his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda with Bourdais’ Dale Coyne Racing teammate, Santino Ferrucci, leading the rookie field at WWT Raceway with the sixth-fastest qualifying run.

 

The fourth row of the 22-car starting field will be headed by the Honda of James Hinchcliffe in seventh, with championship contender Scott Dixon lining up eighth.  Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay will start ninth, with Felix Rosenqvist rounding out the top 10 in his Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.

 

Live television coverage of Saturday’s 248-lap race, the final oval race of the 2019 NTT IndyCar Series season, starts at 8 p.m. EDT on the NBC Sports Network.

 

Sebastien Bourdais (DCR with Vasser-Sullivan RacingHonda) Qualified second: “A front-row start, we’ll definitely take it.  This [track] is like ‘full commitment’, feeling out the car [on the warmup lap] and the tires, and then just really ‘working it’ on the timed laps.  You’ve got to trust your car, and you’ve really got to ‘send it’ into the corners, it’s a lot of commitment.  The consequences [of a mistake] are pretty high, too.  It’s not like you’re going around at 120 mph [here].  Average speed is 185, 186 mph.  That means we’re entering Turn One at Two-oh-something (200+ mph).  It’s substantial, but I really enjoy it.”

 

NTT IndyCar Series Bommarito Automotive Group 500

Circuit:​​World Wide Technology Raceway (1.25-mile oval) Madison, IL

2018 Winner:​Will Power (Team Penske)155.644 mph average

Weather:​Mostly sunny, warm, 81 degrees F

 

Top-10 Qualifying Results:

Ps.	Driver​	Team	Manufacturer	Speed mph	Notes
1.	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	Chevrolet	186.508
2.	Sebastien Bourdais	DCR with Vasser-Sullivan​	Honda	185.927
3.	Will Power	Team Penske	Chevrolet	185.896
4.	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	Chevrolet	185.143
5.	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	Honda	185.050
6.	Santino Ferrucci-R	Dale Coyne Racing	Honda	184.830
7.	James Hinchcliffe	Arrow Schmidt Peterson	Honda	184.452
8.	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	184.293
9.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	Honda	184.206
10.	Felix Rosenqvist-R	Chip Ganassi Racing​	Honda	184.130

Other Honda Results

11.	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	Honda	184.070
12.	Colton Herta	Harding Steinbrenner Racing	Honda	183.399
14.	Marcus Ericsson-R	Arrow Schmidt Peterson	Honda	183.130
15.	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	Honda	182.547
16.	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	Honda	182.065
22.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	Honda	175.192