Will Power in the No.12 Verizon Business Team Penske Chevrolet may be 33 points behind Alex Palou heading into Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Super Speedway but he has the advantage going into the race.
Power, who needs to finish third or better and Palou finish outside the top ten starts the race from fourth while Palou who has a nine place grid penalty starts the race 24th following a disastrous qualifying.
Speaking following the action on Saturday, Palou said:
“It wasn’t ideal,” Palou said. “It was a lot more comfortable this morning during practice, so we don’t really know what happened to the 10 car. The first lap wasn’t too bad, then the second lap was really, really bad. Not what we wanted, not what we needed.
“It’s not making it easier, for sure. It’s time to see what we can do. Hopefully we can make up some spots. The car was really good this morning.”
Power said:
“This is as good as I could do right there. “You can never ask for more than that. Would have been nice to get a pole, but that’s life.
“We’ll do what we can in the race tomorrow. You know how these things roll. If it’s our day, it will be our day. If not, we’ll try again next year.”
Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood scored his first oval NTT P1 Award after setting a 201.520MPH and speaking following the action he said he was stoked.
I’m stoked right now. “It’s huge for our season to end off with a pole. I was a little upset we didn’t get a win or a pole (this season), and this is our final chance to do it, and we got it done.”