Conor Daly gets first career pole, finishes eighth at Race 1 of Iowa 250s

Conor Daly achieved a milestone in his INDYCAR career Friday night, winning his first-ever pole.
The Noblesville native earned the pole position for Race 1 of the INDYCAR Iowa 250s at the Iowa Speedway. Daly qualified for the Race 1 top spot with a run of 175.188 mph. In his second qualifying lap, Daly ran at 174.960 mph; that will start him in the third position for tonight’s Race 2, which is set to being at 8:30 p.m. on NBCSN. Daly is now with Carlin Racing, giving it a first-ever pole as well.
Daly led the first 13 laps of the 250-lap race, and would go on to finish in eighth place. Simon Pagenaud, who started last out of 23 cars, was the winner, leading the final 73 laps and 83 in all.
“It was definitely a rollercoaster of a day for us,” said Daly. “Obviously, we were so excited to win the pole for tonight’s race in the No. 59 Gallagher Carlin Chevrolet. That’s just such a major accomplishment for myself and this team. We’ve all been working so hard and the guys gave me a great car to qualify, so I was pretty excited that I was able to get that pole. We started the race tonight OK but just really struggled with keeping the rear underneath me and trying to figure it out as we went. It was just tough, and we just didn’t have the pace that we needed.”
The race had a long caution period, from laps 144 to 169, three cars were involved in various parts of contact.
“The yellow really killed us,” said Daly. “Some people just got so lucky with that, but unfortunately it didn’t fall our way. We chose to extend the last stint and make the tires last, but it was really tough driving absolutely to the limit on older tires and trying to hold people off there at the end. It was tough end to the day, but it was seriously awesome to get the first INDYCAR pole for both Carlin and myself, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow night’s race where we’ll start up front again in third.”