Grosjean seeing effort from he and Andretti team paying off

Grosjean, the only Andretti Autosport driver to make it into the Firestone Fast Six shootout, edged Alex Palou for pole by barely 0.073s, while Pato O’Ward and Scott McLaughlin completed the top four which was covered by less than 0.12s.

Grosjean, who also took pole for the season-opener in St. Petersburg, and qualified third at Long Beach – where teammate Kyle Kirkwood took pole – commented: “I think we've shown that we've got a very strong baseline, very strong package this year on street course and road course, and oval is getting good, as well.”

He later added: “I think we definitely found something at the end of last year, winter testing, and yeah, I just knew today that we had the car to fight for pole.

“I think as a driver, you feel it very quickly. If you can drive the car fast, even if you make small mistakes, the lap time is still there, so you kind of know if you put it all together, it's going to be good. Yes, we've got good momentum, we've got a good group of people, so it's a car that they -- I've got all the strengths of the car I loved in '21 [at Dale Coyne Racing] with all the strengths of the car I loved in '22, and we've kind of put it together and that's worked well for us.”

Asked whether he was encouraged to renew his contract with Andretti Autosport for 2024, he replied: “That's a discussion for the month of May or so. But yes, my contract runs out at the end of the year, so you want to do a good job.

“Also I think what we've seen this year is the fruit of what we did last year, and it wasn't the season that we were expecting, but we all worked hard and got it together. The team made a lot of changes, I think, in the winter.

“From as far as I can tell, it was a huge difference, and also I think myself. I looked at myself and tried to understand what I could do better, and I think that's what we're seeing right now.”

Regarding strategy for tomorrow’s 13^th Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber, Grosjean said it was an unknown.

“I think that's the beauty of IndyCar; you never know what you're going to get. We all know that you've got degradation on the reds, so that's going to be a question – Are they going to fall apart after 10 laps? Are they going to be able to do a full stint? That's really a big question.

The track is going to be green tomorrow. All of it, but it's not ideal when you start on pole because you're the first one to start out!”