{"id":6961,"date":"2024-04-27T11:50:05","date_gmt":"2024-04-27T15:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=6961"},"modified":"2024-04-29T11:51:51","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T15:51:51","slug":"felix-rosenqvist-paces-team-effort-for-meyer-shank-racing-in-alabama-indycar-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/27\/felix-rosenqvist-paces-team-effort-for-meyer-shank-racing-in-alabama-indycar-qualifying\/","title":{"rendered":"Felix Rosenqvist Paces Team Effort for Meyer Shank Racing in Alabama INDYCAR Qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><em>First time MSR has qualified in the top five for three consecutive INDYCAR races<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Both MSR cars in top 12 for first time since last race of 2022 season<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Career-best starting spot for Tom Blomqvist<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Birmingham, Ala. &#8211; (27 April 2024) \u2013 The saying goes that a rising tide raises all ships and Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) lent some credence to it on Saturday. The team built\u00a0on Felix Rosenqvist\u2019s (No. 60 AutoNation \/ SiriusXM Honda) strong early season to qualifying both of its cars in the top 12 for the first time since 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Rosenqvist led the way in qualifying for Sunday\u2019s Children\u2019s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix, taking the fifth spot in the final session, while his rookie teammate, Tom Blomqvist\u00a0had the best qualifying result of his nascent INDYCAR SERIES career, as he took his\u00a0No. 66 AutoNation \/ Arctic Wolf Honda to\u00a012<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0on the starting grid.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"CToWUd a6T alignright\" tabindex=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/ci3.googleusercontent.com\/meips\/ADKq_NZoAvpBHYnn_413iWezxGe_hlhyvwTTDg_JZlxuKD_ybNHXOVFfA3x0pj4wgx_BwK2kVJTq_fA3ROdZ77Ni0Z1XNfu0PBT7RsCFRFUevljduRRCE-eOhFHDEK1--_QLuh-h8-KAPeCcGzolyC16YMyK4ZvCl4OF314W9BbVXeo=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/a33ba08d163385b4a77fabf6c\/_compresseds\/db2ce995-fc9d-b50f-1066-7991a6a0ae48.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" align=\"right\" data-bit=\"iit\" \/>Rosenqvist\u2019s result followed a big team effort on Saturday, as the MSR squad executed a preventative engine change in short order following the second practice session. The change\u00a0paid off as the team had the No. 60 entry fired up and ready to run just minutes ahead of the green flag flying to kick off the qualifying session.<br \/>\nBoth MSR drivers raced their way into the second qualifying session as Rosenqvist ran fifth with Blomqvist taking the sixth and final transfer position. The Top 12 qualifying run was the\u00a0first time that the team had\u00a0both off its cars transfer since the 2022 season finale at Laguna Seca when Helio Castroneves (12<sup>th<\/sup>) and Simon Pagenaud (10<sup>th<\/sup>) turned the trick.<\/p>\n<p>The results moved them into the 12-car second qualifying session, where Blomqvist sealed his career-best 12<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0position in Sunday\u2019s starting lineup with a best time of 1:06.3781 (124.723 mph) around the 2.3-mile Barber layout.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"CToWUd a6T alignleft\" tabindex=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/ci3.googleusercontent.com\/meips\/ADKq_NbCwWmns5xc-sFtuG1cEqhg9xb1RHn6hGeb6hYDj4DxSEtcxvLKeGYsmo-Dve2kG0aigdotxY7wlJc20_jJQ40Pmjdi5gX3bbTJbVJpz-NaXSShUYDOGwigucropQmP8pETj2h1hvNA5gfE7Ll-ST08ciafDVrttXOYWCb2F9s3=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/a33ba08d163385b4a77fabf6c\/_compresseds\/afcb3940-b201-ddc4-af93-04c38b1ab5a5.jpeg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" align=\"right\" data-bit=\"iit\" \/>Rosenqvist moved into the Firestone Fast Six for the third time in as many races this year after placing sixth in Q2. He\u00a0then logged a best lap of 1:06.4524 (124.600 mph) in the final session to qualify fifth. The fifth-place spot marks the third consecutive time Rosenqvist\u2019s MSR machine will start in the top five, marking the first time in the team\u2019s history that it has accomplished the feat.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday\u2019s 90-lap Children\u2019s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix will air on NBC and Peacock starting at 1:00 ET. SiriusXM will also host live IndyCar Radio coverage on XM Ch. 218.<br \/>\n<strong>Meyer Shank Racing Driver Quotes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Felix Rosenqvist:\u00a0<\/strong>&#8220;I&#8217;d say that was a pretty good qualifying effort. We had to do an engine change so we basically missed most of practice two and we had a telemetry issue in practice one. The weekend has been really rough, so we said that if we make it into the Top 12 we would be really happy, so to make the Fast Six we didn&#8217;t really expect it. I feel like we made the most out of it and it puts us in a good position to do something in the race tomorrow.&#8221;<br \/>\n<strong>Tom Blomqvist:\u00a0<\/strong><strong>\u201c<\/strong>First top-12 for me so that\u2019s a positive. My engineer (Ron Borhorst) told me before the start of the year that as long as we keep moving up race by race, we\u2019ll be doing well. We\u2019re just chipping away at it. This weekend has been tough for us, the track hasn&#8217;t really suited our\u00a0package as well as it did at St. Pete and Long Beach. Nonetheless it&#8217;s still my best qualifying and every event, it&#8217;s getting better and better for me. Felix has been doing fantastic and I\u2019m excited that we keep making progress.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First time MSR has qualified in the top five for three consecutive INDYCAR races Both MSR cars in top 12 for first time since last race<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-feature","category-meyer-shank-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6963,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6961\/revisions\/6963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}