IndyCar

Rahal beats McLaughlin to IndyCar pole at Portland

by Jack Benyon
4 min read

Graham Rahal pulled off a tactical masterstroke to score his second pole position of the 2023 IndyCar season – after a six-year wait for the first – to beat Scott McLaughlin by just 0.0330s at Portland.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Rahal was the only one of his team to make it out of Q1 with his team-mates starting outside the top 15, and he did it by going with a fresh set of hard tyres to set his fastest lap in the penultimate qualifying of the year.

He delivered a slower final lap and then pitted while he waited for the soft-shod runners to have a go at unseating him. They couldn’t and it means for the first time since 2009 he has two poles in a year following his pole on the Indianapolis road course last month – it’s also the team’s fourth of the season as well as the 11th Honda-powered pole of the year.

McLaughlin – who won from pole last year – was the only Penske driver in the Fast Six and missed out on pole by a hair, ahead of Colton Herta.

Herta hit the wall at Turn 1 in the morning practice but was the only Andretti car to make it past Q1 with Romain Grosjean (15th), Kyle Kirkwood (16th) and Devlin DeFrancesco (21st) struggling.

Scott Dixon beat title-contending team-mate Alex Palou as they qualified fourth and fifth respectively. A podium for Palou on Sunday would guarantee him the title a race early.

Pato O’Ward rounded out the Fast Six for Arrow McLaren as the series’ second-best qualifier behind Palou this year.

Will Power was the fastest driver to miss out on the Fast Six in seventh, ahead of Callum Ilott, who’s been fighting a Juncos Hollinger car that’s tough to qualify all year.

His ninth last week was his best of the year and he’s bettered that in Portland, four spots higher than his previous best road and street course qualifying of the year and six spots better than last year when he finished ninth from 14th.

Alexander Rossi was ninth, ahead of Marcus Ericsson rounding out the top 10 on his birthday.

The last two drivers in Q2 had issues, with Felix Rosenqvist in 11th spending the end of the session in the pits with an issue.

Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden qualified 12th after crashing early in Q2 at Turn 11, running wide and ploughing into a tyre barrier at Portland’s last turn.

RLL’s Juri Vips will make his IndyCar race debut from 18th, after he was just under eight tenths off the fastest time in the first session.

The ex-Red Bull Formula 1 reserve will be one spot behind Christian Lundgaard whose practice pace looked like he’d be a threat for pole but Rahal was the only driver to get through Q1 for the team.

Last week’s podium scorer David Malukas will start 24th, with Tom Blomqvist well off the pace in his second IndyCar start and his first time at Portland, 1.4 seconds off the best time and almost six-tenths off team-mate Helio Castroneves.

Blomqvist is set to start last as his car needed a fifth engine of the year for qualifying, breaching the allowed number and resulting in a six-place grid drop.

Qualifying Results

Pos Name Team Car Q1 Q2 Q3
1 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 58.161s 58.324s 58.319s
2 Scott McLaughlin Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 58.052s 58.077s 58.319s
3 Colton Herta Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 58.084s 58.233s 58.457s
4 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 58.37s 58.265s 58.58s
5 Alex Palou Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 57.965s 58.323s 58.649s
6 Patricio O'Ward Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 58.102s 58.257s 58.673s
7 Will Power Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 58.191s 58.377s
8 Callum Ilott Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 58.307s 58.497s
9 Alexander Rossi Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 58.463s 58.502s
10 Marcus Ericsson Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 58.595s 58.547s
11 Felix Rosenqvist Arrow McLaren SP Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 57.896s 59.305s
12 Josef Newgarden Team Penske Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 58.089s
13 Rinus VeeKay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 58.324s
14 Marcus Armstrong Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 58.665s
15 Romain Grosjean Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 58.352s
16 Kyle Kirkwood Andretti Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 58.683s
17 Christian Lundgaard Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 58.367s
18 Jüri Vips Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 58.745s
19 Ryan Hunter-Reay Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 58.652s
20 Agustín Canapino Juncos Hollinger Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 58.775s
21 Devlin DeFrancesco Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport Dallara DW12-Honda 58.674s
22 Hélio Castroneves Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 58.8s
23 Santino Ferrucci AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 59.063s
24 David Malukas Dale Coyne Racing/HMD Motorsports Dallara DW12-Honda 58.901s
25 Sting Ray Robb Dale Coyne Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 59.264s
26 Benjamin Pedersen AJ Foyt Racing Dallara DW12-Chevrolet 59.217s
27 Tom Blomqvist Meyer Shank Racing Dallara DW12-Honda 59.436s
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