IndyCar: Colton Herta penalized prior to Road America

Colton Herta is set to start six positions behind his initial qualifying position in Sunday afternoon’s IndyCar race at Road America.

Andretti Autosport’s Colton Herta made it to the Firestone Fast Six in Saturday afternoon’s IndyCar qualifying session for Sunday afternoon’s Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America, and he was able to qualify his #26 Honda on the inside of the third row in fifth place.

However, he is set to start the 55-lap race around the 14-turn, 4.048-mile (6.515-kilometer) natural terrain road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin in 11th place, as he has been issued a six-position grid penalty.

This penalty comes as a result of Rule 16.5.4, which reads,“Once an Indianapolis 500 Engine is fitted to the Car, removal of the Engine prior to the Indianapolis 500 Race is an Unapproved Engine Change-Out, unless it is for Repair.”

Herta’s wicked crash at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Carb Day led the team to use a spare engine for the 106th running of the Indy 500 itself.

The same penalty was issued to A.J. Foyt Enterprises’ Dalton Kellett for last Sunday afternoon’s race at Belle Isle, but in Herta’s case, the penalty is being applied at Road America because the initial belief was that necessary repairs could be made to the engine and that it wouldn’t have to be scrapped entirely. However, that did not end up being the case.

Here is the updated starting lineup for the Sonsio Grand Prix at Road America.

Starting Lineup
1st – Alexander Rossi
2nd – Josef Newgarden
3rd – Alex Palou
4th – Marcus Ericsson
5th – Pato O’Ward
6th – Romain Grosjean
7th – Felix Rosenqvist
8th – Scott McLaughlin
9th – Scott Dixon
10th – Simon Pagenaud
11th – Colton Herta
12th – Callum Ilott
13th – Christian Lundgaard
14th – David Malukas
15th – Will Power
16th – Helio Castroneves
17th – Rinus VeeKay
18th – Conor Daly
19th – Takuma Sato
20th – Jack Harvey
21st – Devlin DeFrancesco
22nd – Graham Rahal
23rd – Dalton Kellett
24th – Jimmie Johnson
25th – Tatiana Calderon
26th – Kyle Kirkwood
27th – Simona de Silvestro

Tune in to NBC at 12:30 p.m. ET this afternoon for the live broadcast of the Sonsio Grand Prix from Road America. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now if you have not already done so!