Pato O’Ward ran three blistering laps round Barber Motorsports Park to win the pole for IndyCar’s season-opening race and make good on his promise to turn into a headache that sequence veterans should cope with all yr lengthy.

O’Ward, in his second full season of IndyCar and the centerpiece of Arrow McLaren SP’s bid to turn into a sequence heavyweight, set a brand new observe report in Saturday qualifying. It got here within the second spherical, and he closed out the session with a lap of 1 minute, 5.8479 seconds to win the second pole of his profession.

O’Ward’s lap of 1:05.5019 earlier in qualifying broke the report of 1:06.6001 set by Sebastien Bourdais in 2016.

“I wish to win races, I wish to problem for the championship the entire yr, and we wish to have the ability to discuss not nearly myself however the entire staff,” O’Ward mentioned. “We’re simply prepared. We’re able to go. I do not really feel like such an underdog.”

The 21-year-old Mexican will lead the sphere to inexperienced Sunday alongside Alexander Rossi of Andretti Autosport. O’Ward beat Rossi by 0.0698 seconds for the pole.

Alex Palou certified third and led three Chip Ganassi Racing drivers into the Quick Six. Will Power of Staff Penske certified fourth whereas Ganassi drivers Scott Dixon, the six-time and defending IndyCar champion, was fifth and Marcus Ericsson was sixth.

Romain Grosjean, the previous Formulation One driver racing for the primary time since he suffered important burns in a November crash in Bahrain, certified seventh for his IndyCar debut. He’ll drive for Dale Coyne Racing in a partnership with Rick Ware, the NASCAR staff proprietor who fields 4 noncompetitive Cup automobiles.

“What we have proven is excellent. I feel we may be tremendous pleased with that,” Grosjean mentioned. “We have proven that the work we have executed in testing labored properly.”

Jimmie Johnson will begin twenty first out of 24 drivers in his IndyCar debut, drawing a tweet from the seven-time NASCAR champion: “I wasn’t last!“

The Related Press contributed to this report.