James Roe Jr takes his first Indy Nxt pole at Iowa Speedway

Photo: Chris Jones

James Roe Jr took his maiden Indy Nxt pole in the first oval qualifying session of the season at Iowa Speedway.

Roe led an Andretti Global 1-2-3, beating Louis Foster to top spot by just 0.0054 seconds and obliterating the track record previously by Colton Herta.

Qualifying was run in single-car format with two laps around the 0.875-mile circuit. As the session went on, the track got cooler and laptimes improved. Andretti’s Bryce Aron was on provisional pole for a while, before his average speed was beaten by HMD Motorsports’ Christian Bogle and then Roe.

Roe’s average over two laps came out at 170.625 mph, making him the first driver to break the 170mph barrier.

His team-mate Jamie Chadwick joined him above that landmark, but was was over 0.2mph (equating to 0.0527s) slower on her two-lap run.

Title contenders Caio Collet (HMD) and Jacob Abel (Abel Motorsports) were unable to get close to the sharp end of the field. Both appeared to have prepared their car for race conditions, since the low-downforce set-ups from the second runs in practice had to be carried over into qualifying and will form the basis of the starting set-up for the race, and will start 12th and seventh respectively.

As points leader, Louis Foster was last on track. He went second quickest, meaning he will start comfortably ahead of his title rivals in what is expected to be a single-line race with minimal overtaking since little has been done to grip up the high line.

Bogle lines up fourth, ahead of team-mates Callum Hedge and Christian Brooks. Behind Abel is HMD’s Reece Gold, Aron, and Andretti Cape’s Salvador de Alba.

Abel’s Taylor Fern was the slowest qualifier on her championship debut, several seconds slower than Roe over just two laps.

Qualifying results