Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires points leader Ed Jones has taken the pole position for Friday’s Mazda Indy Lights Grand Prix of Indianapolis Presented by Cooper Tires with a new track record in the No. 11 Carlin entry, following an eventful and fun 45-minute qualifying session. He’d also nabbed the pole position in qualifying for the previous round at Barber Motorsports Park.
With a long qualifying session at their disposal, the field of 16 Indy Lights competitors had time and several sets of new sticker Cooper Tires to utilize in an important qualifying sessions.
Early laps in the 1:16 range for the field quickly went into the 1:15s, within range of Jack Harvey’s 2015 track record, a 1:15.0639 lap of the 2.439-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
RC Enerson was first into the 1:15s at 1:15.9464 in the No. 7 Lucas Oil/Curb Records backed entry for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Teammate Santiago Urrutia took the time to 1:15.9260, then Andretti Autosport’s Dean Stoneman made it down to 1:15.8194.
Both of the two Felixes – Rosenqvist (Belardi Auto Racing) and Serralles (Carlin) – dipped into the 1:15.4 bracket before it got crazy in the final 10 minutes once a number of others shifted onto new sets of sticker tires.
Urrutia ran a 1:15.0914 before Serralles laid down a 1:15.0480, which supplanted Harvey’s previous track record.
But it was the other Felix who was first into the 1:14s – fittingly it was Rosenqvist, the driver of the No. 14 car, who clocked a 1:14.9846 to move to the provisional pole position.
It didn’t last long. With just over two minutes to go, Jones laid down a new track record mark of 1:14.6473 in the No. 11 Carlin entry.
Jones starts ahead of Rosenqvist, Urrutia, Serralles and Enerson. The top four drivers on the grid have all won at least once this year; Enerson has been close but is yet to win and the fifth winner this season, Kyle Kaiser, qualified sixth.
The top 12 of 16 runners were covered within a second, at 0.8945 of a second.
Qualifying times from the session are below, before the first race at 4:30 p.m.
| P | No | Name | FTime | Diff | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 11 | Ed Jones | 1:14.674 | 0.000 | 21 |
| 2 | 14 | Felix Rosenqvist | 1:14.985 | 0.3103 | 22 |
| 3 | 55 | Santiago Urrutia | 1:15.040 | 0.3656 | 22 |
| 4 | 4 | Felix Serralles | 1:15.048 | 0.3737 | 24 |
| 5 | 7 | RC Enerson | 1:15.092 | 0.4179 | 20 |
| 6 | 18 | Kyle Kaiser | 1:15.117 | 0.4424 | 18 |
| 7 | 27 | Dean Stoneman | 1:15.133 | 0.4587 | 21 |
| 8 | 5 | Zach Veach | 1:15.238 | 0.5636 | 23 |
| 9 | 77 | Scott Anderson | 1:15.462 | 0.7872 | 16 |
| 10 | 22 | Neil Alberico | 1:15.502 | 0.8281 | 19 |
| 11 | 3 | Scott Hargrove | 1:15.563 | 0.8889 | 18 |
| 12 | 51 | Shelby Blackstock | 1:15.569 | 0.8945 | 22 |
| 13 | 2 | Juan Piedrahita | 1:15.677 | 1.0028 | 19 |
| 14 | 17 | Andre Negrao | 1:15.739 | 1.0647 | 19 |
| 15 | 28 | Dalton Kellett | 1:15.809 | 1.1345 | 23 |
| 16 | 13 | Zachary Claman De Melo | 1:15.872 | 1.1977 | 15 |
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