Road To Indy on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course – Megennis pips VeeKay to snag Indy Lights pole

By Steve Wittich

It was the final laps of the session by a trio of Indy Lights rookies that was that decided the pole sitter for this afternoon’s race.

The winner in that battle was Andretti Autosport’ Robert Megennis, whose lap of 65.192 seconds helped him grab his first Indy Lights and second career Road To Indy pole by a thin margin of 0.02 seconds over Rinus van Kalmthout (Rinus VeeKay).

The Juncos Racing rookie was less than two-tenths of a second ahead of championship leader Oliver Askew (Andretti Autosport).

Askew will be joined on the second row his veteran teammate Ryan Norman.

The pole is the third straight for Andretti Autosport, and the sixth on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

Qualifying for the first Indy Lights Grand Prix of Indianapolis Presented By Cooper Tires race rolled off after the first NTT IndyCar Series at 10 am.

Lucas Kohl missed Turn 1 early in the session but was able to continue.

There were no red flags during the session, allowing the drivers to complete between 13 and 20 laps.

Claman Megennis Sowery all led early in the session, but with 10 minutes gone, it was Megennis who was quickest at 76.225 seconds. He was joined in the top five by Sowery, Malukas, Askew, and Kellett.

At the half-way point of the ½ hour session, it was VeeKay that had moved to provisional pole, with a lap of 75.558 seconds, only two-hundredths quicker than Megennis. The top seven drivers were within a half-second of the defending Indy Pro 2000 champion.

Just after the half-way point, the majority of the field was in pit lane to make adjustments and bolt on fresh Cooper Tire slicks.

The first driver to head back out to try and improve on their time was the Cybersecurity sponsored No. 27 of Megennis. He was soon joined by the rest of the field, accepting Oliver Askew, who remained on pit road until eight minutes were remaining.

The first driver to get their new Coopers up to temp and go faster were the Belardi Auto Racing teammates Lucas Kohl and Zachary Claman. However, those were the two drivers that were not within the half-second as mentioned above.

None of the top seven had gone quicker with under four minutes remaining.

However, with three minutes remaining, Megennis turned his quickest lap to that point, knocking VeeKay off the provisional pole by a scant three-hundredths of a second.

The New Yorker went quicker on his next lap, lowering his time by another tenth of a second.

The timing screen started to turn almost all purple as drivers began to set their quickest laps. Norman, Malukas, Claman, and Kellett all went faster.

Megennis went even quicker on his 19th lap, and he needed all that time. VeeKay improved on his final lap but fell two-hundredths short of the Andretti Autosport rookie.

Indy Lights Grand Prix of Indianapolis Presented By Cooper Tires Qualifying #1 (Unofficial) Results

The first Indy Lights race of the weekend rolls off at 1:30 pm.