Scott Dixon Wins Fifth Indianapolis 500 Pole

Scott Dixon dominated qualifying to win his second consecutive Indianapolis 500 pole position with authority, putting up a four lap average of 234.046 mph, the second fastest pole speed of all time en route to his fifth pole for “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing”.

IndyCar’s “Iceman” was the last to hit a rapidly-cooling track, beating out his teammate Alex Palou and Ed Carpenter Racing‘s Rinus Veekay who make up the rest of the first row in second and third respectively.

“This is stage one,” Dixon said on pit lane. “Obviously it doesn’t mean nothing come next Sunday. We’re starting in the right spot, we haven’t had a good record of keeping it in the right spot, but we’ll definitely be trying come next Sunday.”

Ed Carpenter will start on the inside of Row Two in fourth place, flanked by CGR teammates Marcus Ericsson and Tony Kanaan in fifth and sixth respectively. Kanaan’s team made a herculean effort to put the car on the track after electrical issues threatened their qualifying runs.

Dixon was just as dominant in the Fast Twelve as well. The New Zealand native was the third car on track in the first session of the day and picked up right where he left off from practice this morning, as he set the bar high with a hyper consistent four lap average of 233.510 mph. That held to be the fastest ahead of Veekay and Palou in second and third respectively.

Jimmie Johnson made an incredible save in the first corner of his first lap, as understeer sent him up the track. The seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion just barely kept his car off the wall, but the moment killed his average and despite a great recovery he will start twelfth. Even though he was last in qualifying today, starting in the first four rows of his first Indy 500 is a huge accomplishment for Johnson.

Pato O’Ward, Felix Rosenqvist, Romain Grosjean, Takuma Sato, and Will Power were the other drivers eliminated, starting seventh through eleventh respectively. Positions 13 through 33 were set on a rain shortened session on Saturday, 21 May.

With the grid now set, all eyes turn to the main event of May: The 106th Indianapolis 500 next Sunday, 29 May.

Indianapolis 500 Qualifying Results

RANK	CAR NO.	DRIVER	NAT.	TEAM	AVERAGE SPEED (MPH)
1	9	Scott Dixon	NZL	Chip Ganassi Racing	234.046
2	10	Alex Palou	ESP	Chip Ganassi Racing	233.499
3	21	Rinus VeeKay	NED	Ed Carpenter Racing	233.385
4	33	Ed Carpenter	USA	Ed Carpenter Racing	233.08
5	8	Marcus Ericsson	SWE	Chip Ganassi Racing	232.764
6	1	Tony Kanaan	BRA	Chip Ganassi Racing	232.372
7	5	Pato O’Ward	MEX	Arrow McLaren SP	232.705
8	7	Felix Rosenqvist	SWE	Arrow McLaren SP	232.182
9	28	Romain Grosjean (R)	FRA	Andretti Autosport	231.999
10	51	Takuma Sato	JPN	Dale Coyne Racing w/ Rick Ware Racing	231.67
11	12	Will Power	AUS	Team Penske	231.534
12	48	Jimmie Johnson (R)	USA	Chip Ganassi Racing	231.264
13	18	David Malukas (R)	USA	Dale Coyne Racing w/ HMD Motorsports	231.607
14	2	Josef Newgarden	USA	Team Penske	231.58
15	23	Santino Ferrucci	USA	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	231.508
16	60	Simon Pagenaud	FRA	Meyer Shank Racing	231.275
17	11	JR Hildebrand	USA	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	231.112
18	20	Conor Daly	USA	Ed Carpenter Racing	230.999
19	77	Callum Ilott (R)	GBR	Juncos Hollinger Racing	230.961
20	27	Alexander Rossi	USA	Andretti Autosport	230.812
21	15	Graham Rahal	USA	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	230.766
22	24	Sage Karam	USA	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	230.464
23	98	Marco Andretti	USA	Andretti Herta w/ Marco & Curb-Agajanian	230.345
24	29	Devlin DeFrancesco (R)	CAN	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport	230.326
25	26	Colton Herta	USA	Andretti Autosport	230.235
26	3	Scott McLaughlin	NZL	Team Penske	230.154
27	06	Helio Castroneves	BRA	Meyer Shank Racing	229.63
28	14	Kyle Kirkwood (R)	USA	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	229.406
29	4	Dalton Kellett	CAN	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	228.916
30	6	Juan Pablo Montoya	COL	Arrow McLaren SP	228.622
31	30	Christian Lundgaard (R)	DEN	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	227.053
32	45	Jack Harvey	GBR	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	226.851
33	25	Stefan Wilson	GBR	DragonSpeed / Cusick Motorsports	NO TIME

(R) – Rookie, Positions 13-33 were set Saturday, 21 May.