Rossi breaks his fast streak and scores pole for Indy's Elkhart Lake GP. Castroneves is 16th

After a drought of more than three years, Alexander Rossi scored a pole-position again at Indy. In the qualifying session of the GP of Elkhart Lake, held on Saturday (11), the American Andretti clocked 1min44s865 and will start in the position of honor on Sunday, something that had not happened since the Detroit GP of 2019.

Penske's Josef Newgarden will start second, 0s071s slower than pole position Rossi. Current champion and 2021 Elkhart Lake winner Álex Palou will start third with Ganassi, sharing the second row with teammate Marcus Ericsson. Colton Herta is fifth with Andretti, followed by McLaren's Pato O'Ward.

Franco-Swiss Romain Grosjean leads Andretti to seventh place, followed by Felix Rosenqvist's McLaren. Scott McLaughlin starts ninth with Penske, while Scott Dixon rounds out the top-10 with Ganassi.

The championship leader, Penske's Australian Will Power, disappointed and was only 15th, eliminated in the very first segment of qualifying. Last week, the owner of the #12 car won the Detroit GP after starting 16th.

Power will start alongside Brazilian Helio Castroneves. The Meyer Shank driver did not repeat his qualifying performance from Detroit and will start from 16th at Elkhart Lake this Sunday.

Find out how the Indy standings went at Road America:

Q1: Power and Castroneves are eliminated.

Group 1: Will Power, Alexander Rossi, Colton Herta, Romain Grosjean, Scott Dixon, Christian Lundgaard, Simon Pagenaud, Callum Ilott, Devlin DeFrancesco, Rinus VeeKay, Takuma Sato, Dalton Kellett, and Tatiana Calderón

The 12 minutes for Group 1 were released at 2:45 pm (Brasília time). The first stint was practically all drivers riding on hard tires, and the one who came out on top was Alexander Rossi, who set a 1min45s368 with Andretti.

In the final half, the drivers started their laps on soft tires. As the times dropped, Romain Grosjean was the fastest with 1min44s844. Colton Herta, Alexander Rossi, Callum Ilott, Scott Dixon, and Simon Pagenaud also qualified, leaving Will Power out.

Group 2: Pato O'Ward, Álex Palou, Josef Newgarden, Marcus Ericsson, Scott McLaughlin, Felix Rosenqvist, Helio Castroneves, David Malukas, Conor Daly, Graham Rahal, Jack Harvey, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Kirkwood, and Simona de Silvestro

With 14 drivers in Group 2, the first half was taken up by laps on hard tires, and the standout was Penske's Josef Newgarden, with a time of 1min45s556. Palou, O'Ward, Malukas, Rosenqvist and Castroneves were among those who qualified.

In the part with soft tires, Newgarden held on to the lead, clocking 1min44s555 to qualify. O'Ward, Palou, Rosenqvist, Ericsson, and McLaughlin also advanced. In eighth, Castroneves was eliminated.

Fast 12: Grosjean, Dixon and McLaughlin are eliminated

Q2 started with a mixture of tires among the 12 competitors, some with hard and others with soft. With less than three minutes to go, Callum Ilott escaped and stopped in the gravel box, causing a red flag. The stopwatch didn't stop, and Ilott was rescued by the Indy team, and was able to return to the pits, but not back on the track, as he couldn't advance.

The green flag came out with less than six minutes remaining. On the first lap of each, Palou was fastest with 1min44s944.

On the second pass, Colton Herta came in strong with 1min44s403. Newgarden, Ericsson, Palou, O'Ward, and Rossi also qualified.

Fast 6: Rossi is pole-position

The first three minutes had aborted laps and hard tires, with no timed runs.

Herta, Ericsson, and Palou set very high times, and the decision was left to the final two minutes. Rossi clocked 1min44s926 and jumped into first place. Eventually, the owner of the #27 set 1min44s865, enough for pole.

Indy 2022, Qualifying, Elkhart Lake GP: