BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing completed a front-row sweep Saturday in qualifying for the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama presented by AmFirst, with Takuma Sato claiming the NTT P1 Award and teammate Graham Rahal qualifying second.
Sato, in the No. 30 Mi-Jack/Panasonic Honda, won his eighth career NTT IndyCar Series pole position when he turned a lap of 1 minute, 8.5394 seconds (120.711 mph) in the Firestone Fast Six, the last of three knockout qualifying rounds on Barber Motorsports Park’s 17-turn, 2.3-mile permanent road course. Rahal, driving the No. 15 One Cure Honda, was second quick at 1:08.6971 (120.529 mph).
HONDA INDY GRAND PRIX OF ALABAMA: Unofficial qualifying results
The RLL duo will lead the 24-car field to the green flag in Sunday’s 90-lap race, the 10th annual NTT IndyCar Series event to take place on the rolling, technical circuit in Alabama. It’s the first time the Rahal team has qualified 1-2 for an Indy car race since 2005, when Danica Patrick and Buddy Rice achieved the feat at Chicagoland Speedway.
Scott Dixon, the reigning and five-time series champion will start third following a lap of 1:08.8081 (120.335 mph) in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. Dixon has finished on the podium seven times in nine previous Barber starts, but never has won the race.
James Hinchcliffe, who’d set the fastest lap in practice prior to qualifying, qualified fourth in the No. 5 Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda, with a lap of 1:08.8476 (120.266 mph).
Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan’s Sebastien Bourdais was fifth in the No. 18 SealMaster Honda (1:09.0189), ahead of Spencer Pigot, who reached the Firestone Fast Six for the first time in his four-year career and qualified sixth in the No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet (1:09.6074).
Noticeably absent from the Firestone Fast Six were drivers from both Team Penske and Andretti Autosport. Will Power, who won the NTT P1 Award at the first two races this season, was the top Penske qualifier in seventh, with teammates Simon Pagenaud 14th and Josef Newgarden 16th. It marked the first time since the Long Beach race in April 2014 that no Team Penske driver advanced to the final qualifying round.
Alexander Rossi was the best Andretti qualifier in eighth position.
Newgarden is the two-time defending Barber race winner and takes an 18-point championship lead into the race over rookie Colton Herta, who became the youngest winner in Indy car history with his March 24 victory at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas.
A final 30-minute warmup practice at Barber is set for 12:10 p.m. ET Sunday and livestreams on INDYCAR Pass on NBC Sports Gold. Race coverage starts at 4 p.m. on NBCSN, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app and the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network.