Grosjean, Palou Make Up All Honda Front Row at Barber Motorsports Park

• Romain Grosjean scores his second NTT INDYCAR SERIES pole of 2023 in qualifying for Sunday’s Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix
• 2021 race winner Alex Palou completes front row sweep for Honda
• Honda drivers claim four of the top-six qualifying positions

LEEDS, AL (April 29, 2023) – Romain Grosjean prevailed in an extremely tight final qualifying round Saturday at Barber Motorsports Park to claim his second NTT INDYCAR SERIES pole of the 2023 season, and third in four races for his Andretti Autosport Honda team.

Meanwhile, 2021 Barber race winner Alex Palou qualified second-fastest in his Chip Ganassi Racing entry to make it an all-Honda front row for Sunday’s Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix.

The third row of the 27-car starting field will also be all-Honda, with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon starting fifth; and Christian Lundgaard rounding out the top six for Rahal Letterman Lanigan in his best qualifying performance of 2023.

Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix Honda Qualifying Results

• 1^st Romain Grosjean Andretti Autosport Honda
• 2^nd Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
• 5^th Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
• 6^th Christian Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
• 12^th Kyle Kirkwood Andretti Autosport Honda
• 13^th Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
• 14^th Colton Herta Andretti Autosport Honda
• 16^th Simon Pagenaud Meyer Shank Racing Honda
• 17^th David Malukas Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Honda
• 18^th Devlin DeFrancesco Andretti Autosport Honda
• 19^th Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
• 21^st Helio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing Honda
• 23^rd Sting Ray Robb-R Dale Coyne Racing with RWR Honda
• 24^th Jack Harvey Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda
• 26^th Marcus Armstrong-R Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
• R – Rookie

Quotes

Romain Grosjean (#28 Andretti Autosport Honda) pole qualifier: “Missing practice yesterday

[due to a mechanical issue] is never ideal, but it shows the strengths we have at Andretti Autosport as a team. We’ve got a very good baseline [chassis setup] and the car works well everywhere, we’ve been working with Honda to optimize our performance at each race. So we have nice driveability and great feedback from all our [Andretti Autosport] drivers. Quite excited to have an all-Honda front row for tomorrow!”

Alex Palou (#10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) qualified second, has finished first and second in his two previous starts at Barber Motorsports Park: “It’s great! HPD and Honda locking down the front row is super good. Honestly, we started really good [in practice] yesterday. We were able to test here [earlier this year] which always helps. We just missed [pole] by a little bit, and you need to be perfect to nail a pole in Indy car qualifying. So, happy with the front row [starting position], but hopefully we can find a little bit more in warmup and go for the win in the race. It’s going to take a perfect day [to win], we’ll need to be really good on both the primary and alternate tires, and perfect on the strategy calls. Nowdays, if you just have a slight ‘moment’ during the race, you’re gone from the fight for the win. So hopefully it’s going to be a perfect day for us tomorrow.”

Fast Facts

This is Honda’s third pole in four rounds of the 2023 NTT INDYCAR SERIES. Romain Grosjean qualified first at both the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and today at Barber; while his Andretti Autosport teammate, Kyle Kirkwood, claimed the pole at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach enroute to his first win in the series.

Honda holds the early-season lead in the 2023 NTT INDYCAR SERIES Manufacturers’ Championship, with two victories and three poles so far this season. Honda comes to Barber Motorsports Park with a 32-point advantage (254-222) over rival Chevrolet. The company is seeking its fifth NTT INDYCAR SERIES Manufacturers’ Championship in the last six years in 2023.

With a win at the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Ericsson comes to Barber Motorsports Park leading the Drivers’ Championship points standings, with 15-point lead (110-95) over Pato O’Ward.

Where to Watch

Television coverage of the Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix starts at 3 p.m. EDT Sunday on NBC. Complete, flag-to-flag race coverage also will be available on NBC Peacock, the INDYCAR Radio Network, and SiriusXM INDYCAR Nation (Channel 160).