However Dixon was usurped by his Chip Ganassi teammate Felix Rosenqvist. The Swedish rookie snapped up his first IndyCar pole by a scant 0.2 seconds from Dixon. Felix may be an Indy rookie, but he has over a decade of experience in all sorts of series including Formula Renault, Formula E, Formula 3, DTM, and IMSA. He’s had a strong start to the year, the only real blemish on his record being a crash at Circuit of the Americas. Landing pole cements Felix as a threat in 2019.Bryan Herta overlooks Marco Andretti’s Dallara-Honda. Marco was hoping to kick off his Indy campaign with a good showing at the Indy GP. The Andretti family is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Mario’s Indy 500 win. Alas, his May started off terribly, starting next to last in the GP.Marco’s other car owner is of course his father Michael. Michael’s team is still very competitive with Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay performing well, but Marco and Zach Veach are struggling.Rossi has had a great 2019 so far. Coming into Indy he’d finished no worse than 9th and utterly dominated the Long Beach GP. He is in a major title fight with Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon. Rossi damn near won the championship in 2018 and needed to continue his strong finishing streak to start reeling in Newgarden.Debuting at Indy is the AFP, or the Advanced Frontal Protection Device. It is designed to deflect debris away from the driver’s helmet. It’s a piece of titanium that is bolted to the front of the tub. While the safety gains are debatable, the AFP is really a precursor to a fully integrated windscreen in 2020. A number of people have asked why IndyCar doesn’t just adopt the Halo that F1 and GP2 have proven is an effective solution? Scott Dixon has a good answer for you. On top of the visibility issues, the DW12 chassis isn’t designed for the Halo and integrating it would be difficult at best.
