INDYCAR points leader Alex Palou advanced to the Firestone Fast 6 and secured a P3 starting position at Road America’s qualifying session today. Palou will begin the race from the second row in hot pursuit of his seventh career victory and his second win at the Wisconsin road course (2021). 

Marcus Armstrong and Marcus Ericsson both advanced to the round of 12 and landed starting positions of P8 and P9. Scott Dixon, two-time race winner at Road America (2020; 2017), did not transfer through the initial qualifying round and will begin the race from P23.

In the morning practice session, Marcus Armstrong registered the fastest lap time among the Chip Ganassi Racing drivers for a P5 result. Alex Palou and Scott Dixon were involved in separate on-track incidents that led to contact with the wall. The Chip Ganassi Racing team then rallied to prepare the No. 9 and 10 Hondas for qualifying with roughly three hours to go before the ensuing session. 

“It was a really good effort from the entire team. We’ve seen this before at Chip Ganassi Racing where it turns four teams into one big team,” said Team Manager Taylor Kiel. “Any opportunity where we can all jump in and help, we will take advantage of it. All crew chiefs worked well together, the management team worked well together and we worked to make sure that resources were allocated where they needed to be. People don’t realize that going from a primary chassis to a backup chassis is a ton of work no matter how prepared you are. It was a fantastic job to pull everything together.”

Up next: CGR will participate in one more preparatory session Sunday morning with the Warmup running from 10:15-10:45 a.m. ET. The green flag for the Grand Prix at Road America will then drop at 1:30 p.m. ET with coverage available on USA and Peacock.

Alex Palou No. 10 American Legion Honda “A bit of a sour taste for us today because we had a lot of speed in the car. Had a big mistake in Practice 2 that cost us a lot of time there and then we had to rebuild the car. But I’m super happy with the rebound that we made after that. We’ll start third tomorrow and the speed that we have is amazing. Tomorrow is a new day and I’m looking forward to it.”

Marcus Armstrong No. 11 Ridgeline Lubricants Honda “Qualifying was good. The car was very good, especially in Q1 I thought. I don’t know if the ambient temperatures changed a little bit or if it was the wind direction, but the balance changed a bit, although it was still good. Ultimately, my lap wasn’t great but I thought it was still an okay day. I think the team did a really good job and we have a good car to go racing tomorrow.”

Marcus Ericsson No. 8 Huski Ice Spritz Honda “I think it was a decent qualifying session for us. Q1 went pretty well and Q2 was also going well. Unfortunately, on my best lap there I had a bit of a lock-up. I was on for transfer time but it was a driver mistake. That was a bit disappointing but the car still felt good. P9 is a decent result and we can definitely race from there. The car has been feeling good so looking forward to the race tomorrow.”

Scott Dixon No. 9 PNC Bank Women in Motorsports Honda “What a day. Obviously, the car was damaged and we had to switch to the backup. The team did an amazing job to do that in such a short amount of time, so kudos to them. Unfortunately, the brake bias was a little strange and the pedal itself, too. It was very hard to get out there and try to run. I made a mistake in turn three, too, which otherwise we may have been able to convert. But, we continued the bad day with an end to the bad day.”