INDIANAPOLIS — In the final moments before his Indianapolis 500 mile qualifying race on Saturday — the first of his illustrious two-decade racing career — Jimmie Johnson recalled the life he lived a year ago .
Trackside, right next to where Johnson started his car, was the NBC booth. Johnson watched the 2021 500 from that same box, feeling left out of the action. He was a seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, but had just ventured into IndyCar.
In his first qualifying at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval, Johnson clocked a stellar four laps, posting the sixth-best average speed on day one of qualifying for next Sunday’s Indy 500 – passing IndyCar greats and former 500 champions Scott Dixon, Will Power, Takuma Sato, Simon Pagenaud, Alexander Rossi and four-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves.
Romain Grosjean’s car had idled ahead of Johnson, the rear bumper almost touching the nose of Johnson’s Honda. Like Johnson, Grosjean had a long racing career before joining the IndyCar series, competing in Formula 1 on and off since 2008. Like Johnson, he was about to start his qualifying run for his first Indy 500.
They are two of the least experienced riders in the series, yet both excelled on Saturday against more experienced riders in this particular form of racing. Both Johnson and Grosjean have done well enough to qualify for Sunday’s Fast 12, where the top six drivers will advance with a chance at pole on Sunday afternoon. Grosjean posted an average of 232.201 on the first day of qualifying, good for ninth place.
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“I’m happy to be here. It’s a good experience,” Grosjean said. “There’s a lot going on. It’s great to see that we have so many fans since we started organizing the practice. The course of the race is complicated. I watched it from Europe and was like, ‘Yeah, it just turns left and it’s flat out.’ It’s a little more than that. It’s definitely something every rider should do in the world.
A quality first qualifying race was the culmination of a solid week of training for Johnson. The majority of his IndyCar success has come on ovals, and he has had speeds in the top five among drivers on three occasions since Tuesday.
Johnson is thrilled to be in Indianapolis and loved every game last week; saying this repeatedly during his press conferences. That goes hand-in-hand with his desire to win, and his performance in practice and qualifying showed that a pole or a victory for Johnson is very much on the cards.
“I think I expect to run better on ovals,” he said. “So to gain that confidence, to feel good about things, it’s been a lot of fun.”
Competing in their first 500, each could only pull other series for comparison. Johnson said the qualifying process was more intense than his equivalent at the Daytona 500, which he won twice. Grosjean preferred him over the Monaco Grand Prix qualifying process because he had the whole track to himself during his four laps.
But neither had experienced anything like the Indy 500 pageantry. the Indianapolis Motor Speedway brings”. His children were there, in part, to take the traditional family photo after the qualifying race. Grosjean’s family, who live in Switzerland, couldn’t come, so he posed with his engineer and wife instead.
“I know my kids were booing everyone chasing me on TV,” he said. “It’s very bad, but I was very proud of them.”
Indy 500 partial lineup
Here’s the Indianapolis 500 lineup for positions 13-33, with Saturday’s four-lap qualifying average, starting with row 5 (R=recruit; O=former winner):
Row 5
13. (18) David Malukas (R), Honda, Dale Coyne Racing with HMD, 231.607
14. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, Team Penske, 231,580
15. (23) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, 231.508
Row 6
16. (60) Simon Pagenaud (F), Honda, Meyer Shank Racing, 231.275
17. (11) JR Hildebrand, Chevrolet, AJ Foyt Racing, 231.112
18. (20) Conor Daly, Chevy, Ed Carpenter Racing, 230,999
Row 7
19. (77) Callum Ilott (R), Chevrolet, Juncos Hollinger Racing, 230.916
20. (27) Alexander Rossi (F), Honda, Andretti Autosport, 230.812
21. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, 230.766
Line 8
22. (24) Sage Karam, Chevrolet, Dreyer & Reinbold, 230.464
23. (98) Marco Andretti, Honda, Andretti Herta Autosport with Marco Curb, 230.345
24. (29) Devlin DeFrancesco (R), Honda, Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport, 230.326
Row 9
25. (26) Colton Herta, Honda, Andretti Autosport, 230.235
26. (3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevy, Team Penske, 230.154
27. (06) Helio Castroneves (F), Honda, Meyer Shank Racing, 229.630
Row 10
28. (14) Kyle Kirkwood (R), Chevrolet, AJ Foyt Racing, 229.406
29. (4) Dalton Kellett, Chevy, AJ Foyt Racing, 228.916
30. (6) Juan Pablo Montoya (F), Chevrolet, Arrow McLaren SP, 228.622
Row 11
31. (30) Christian Lungaard (R), Honda, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, 227.053
32. (45) Jack Harvey, Honda, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, 226.851
33. (25) Stefan Wilson, Chevrolet, DragonSpeed/Cusick Racing, no speed
