Jack Harvey has been craving the one thing that’s been missing from his professional life for far too long: feeling normal. On Friday, during qualifying for the Indianapolis Grand Prix, the Briton got his wish as his No. 30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda was a vision of speed on the way to qualifying fourth for the 85-lap contest.
The run is now his best since joining RLL in 2022. At his former team, visits to the Firestone Fast Six with Meyer Shank Racing were common, and he wasn’t too far out of the frame after qualifying ninth at this event for RLL last May,
“It’s just unloading from the trucks and being good, and going into (first practuce) and actually feeling confident,” Harvey told RACER. “And that feeling really hasn’t been there for a little bit. Because when you don’t unload that way, you’re chasing something quite a lot the rest of the weekend. And that series is too hard to catch up very much when that happens.
“I just felt confident through the whole of qualifying, Fantastic performance by the team. This is actually the first time I’m back to a normal qualifying result which I had a lot of in 2020 and 2021. It definitely felt great to be in the car for the whole qualifying and full credit to the team for making it possible.”
Teammate Christian Lundgaard was a rocket as well, earning his first IndyCar pole in the No. 45 Honda as RLL embraced its full potential in time trials. Harvey obviously wanted to be the one to earn RLL’s first pole of the season, but being less than one-tenth behind his heralded teammate was a solid reminder of what he can deliver when all things go according to plan.
“It was a great team performance with Christian on pole and Graham in eighth, so this belongs to everybody at RLL,” Harvey said. “Of course I wanted it to be me because you’re always measuring yourself against your teammates, but we were close and we’re definitely shooting for the podium tomorrow.”
