McLaughlin puts in a blinder to snatch pole for St. Petersburg GP
03/01/2025 05:03 PM
The first qualifying session of the new IndyCar Series season delivered some of the expected and usual dramas as Team Penske's Scott McLaughlin captured pole position on the final lap with a 59.4624s tour to lead the field for Sunday's Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
It had been a Honda party up until that point as the brand led both practice sessions and held pole until the final seconds with Colton Herta, who was knocked down to second with his 59.6369s lap in the No. 26 Honda after McLaughlin fired over the finish line in the No. 3 Chevy. Another pole was a welcome reward coming off a crash on Friday that forced his crew, led by Trevor Lacasse, to work until almost 9 p.m.
"Huge amount of respect," McLaughlin said. "We have so much trust in each other. I had to repay them. I made a little silly mistake there. I just wanted to get pole for the first race of the year. We'll do what we can in the race and see how we go."
After McLaughlin and Herta, the stars of qualifying—plural—came from Meyer Shank Racing, led by Felix Rosenqvist in third and Marcus Armstrong in fourth. It got MSR's new technical alliance with Chip Ganassi Racing off to a great start, and also showed its new competitive edge by out-qualifying the entire Ganassi team.
McLaughlin's teammate Will Power, IndyCar's all-time record holder for pole positions, failed to make it out of Q1. IndyCar's most popular driver, Pato O'Ward, also failed to break out of Q1. His Arrow McLaren team was led by newcomer Christian Lundgaard in fifth, and completing the top six was Ganassi's Scott Dixon.
Defending series champion Alex Palou, among the fastest in practice, struggled slightly and earned eighth, two spots ahead of a disappointed Josef Newgarden—polesitter a year ago—in 10th. Power was an astonishing 13th, but O'Ward's day was worse, relegated to 23rd out of 27 drivers.
Of the positive surprises, Arrow McLaren's Nolan Siegel was 11th, best of his young career, and Rinus VeeKay, signed two weeks ago to drive for Dale Coyne Racing, was 12th. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's Devlin DeFrancesco led his entire team in 14th while teammate Louis Foster was top among the rookies in 16th. RLL veteran Graham Rahal was 21st.
If there was a sneakily impressive performer within the 27 car field, it was Prema Racing's Robert Shwartzman, who didn't turn many laps on Friday, lost most of the Saturday morning session with a communications issue, and should have been close to last in qualifying. He shot to 18th—splitting Foyt's David Malukas and Santino Ferrucci—as teammate and IndyCar veteran Callum Ilott was 27th.
