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| Colton Herta stole thunder from championship battle in Laguna Seca qualifying |
Scott Dixon missed out on pole position by 0.0426 seconds. Dixon has to win at Laguna Seca to have any chance of winning his sixth championship. Dixon has won the season finale in his IndyCar career twice, at Homestead in 2010 and 2015 at Sonoma. Dixon has finished on the podium in the season finale in ten of the last 16 seasons and he has 12 top five finishes and 15 top ten finishes in those 16 season finales. The only time he did not finish in the top ten in the last 16 season finales was when he finished 17th at Sonoma in 2016 after dealing with electrical issues. In his entire career, he has 16 top ten finishes in 18 season finales. Dixon has finished outside the top ten in the last two races. He has not had three consecutive finishes outside the top ten since the Grand Prix of Indianapolis through the first Belle Isle race in 2014.
Alexander Rossi will start third with Josef Newgarden starting next to him on row two in fourth position. All Newgarden has to do to win the championship is finish fourth, regardless of what Rossi, Dixon or Simon Pagenaud do.
Rossi has not led a lap in the last six races with his last lap led being taking the checkered flag in first place at Road America. This is his longest stretch without a lap led since he went seven races without a lap led from the first Belle Isle race to Mid-Ohio in 2017. He ended that drought at Pocono, where he finished third to Will Power and Josef Newgarden. In the 16 races where qualifying was held this season, Rossi started ahead of Newgarden nine times. This will be the fifth time Rossi and Newgarden have started on the same row this season. In those previous four races Rossi was the better finisher twice and Newgarden was the better finisher twice with each driver having a retirement.
Newgarden has been the top Team Penske finisher in seven of the first 16 races but he has not been the top finisher since his victory at Iowa in July. He was the top Team Penske finisher in the first four races of the season and in five of the first seven races. This is the fourth time Newgarden was the top Penske qualifier. In the three previous times he was top Penske qualifier he either won the race or finished second. Newgarden could become the first driver to bookend the season with victories since 2006 when both Champ Car and the Indy Racing League had drivers bookend seasons with victories. Sébastien Bourdais and Dan Wheldon did it in Champ Car and the IRL respectively. Bourdais won the title that year but Wheldon lost the championship on tiebreaker to Team Penske's Sam Hornish, Jr. Hornish, Jr. had four victories while Wheldon only won the first and last race of the season. The last Penske driver to bookend a season with victories was Rick Mears in 1989. Mears won the season opener at Phoenix and the season finale at Laguna Seca.
James Hinchcliffe will start fifth in what was his first Fast Six appearance since Barber. Hinchcliffe has finished outside the top ten in the last four races and he is 13 points outside the top ten of the championship. Since 2016, Hinchcliffe's average championship position is 12th. In his first four IndyCar seasons, Hinchcliffe's average championship position was tenth. Simon Pagenaud will start sixth. Pagenaud is looking for his third victory in the season finale in the last four years and he finished fourth last year in the Sonoma season finale. Prior to this three-year stretch, Pagenaud's best finish in a season finale was sixth at Mexico City at the end of the 2007 Champ Car season and his average finish in season finales prior to 2016 was 14th.
Will Power will start seventh after missing out on advancing to the final round of qualifying by 0.0055 seconds. Power had started in the top five in five consecutive races. The only time Power has won from seventh on the grid was at Toronto in 2007, his second career victory. Graham Rahal starts eighth and he missed advancing to the Fast Six by 0.0210 seconds. Rahal is coming off a 23rd place finish at Portland. He was classified in 23rd last year at Portland and followed it up with a 23rd place result in the season finale at Sonoma after a mechanical failure. He has only finished in the top ten of a finale four times out of an eleven opportunities in his IndyCar career. Like Colton Herta, Graham Rahal could make the Rahals the first father-son pair to both win at Laguna Seca in IndyCar history. His father Bobby won four consecutive years at Laguna Seca from 1984-87.
Ryan Hunter-Reay will start ninth in his first IndyCar start at Laguna Seca in 15 years. Hunter-Reay enters the finale seventh in the championship and the best he could finish is fifth but that would require a victory and Will Power finishing dead last in 24th. Since joining Andretti Autosport in 2010, Hunter-Reay has finished in the top ten of the championship in eight of nine seasons. The lone exception was when he finished 12th in 2016. Max Chilton will start tenth, his first top ten start since he qualified sixth last year at Mid-Ohio. Chilton has not had a top ten finish in his last 29 starts and Laguna Seca is set to be the 62nd start of his IndyCar career. The only driver to pick up a first career victory in a 62nd career start was Roger McCluskey on August 7, 1966 at Langhorne. The only driver to pick up a first career podium in a 62nd career start was A.J. Foyt IV on August 11, 2007 with a third at Kentucky. Chilton's brother Tom won the 2005 American Le Mans Series race at Laguna Seca overall with Hayanari Shimoda in a Zytek 04S over the Audi R8 of Frank Biela and Emanuele Pirro.
Marcus Ericsson qualified 11th with fellow rookie Santino Ferrucci joining him on row six. Ericsson is back after missing Portland due to Alfa Romeo F1 commitments at the Belgian Grand Prix. Ericsson's best finish in a Formula One season finale was 14th in the 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Ericsson has finished worse than his starting position seven times and he has finished better than his starting position seven times. He started and finished 20th at Toronto. Ferrucci made it to the second round of qualifying for the first time since Barber. He could become the second Dale Coyne Racing driver to win Rookie of the Year in the last three seasons. Ed Jones won Rookie of the Year in 2017, however, when Jones won Rookie of the Year he was the only rookie to run every race and the next most starts for a rookie was seven for Esteban Gutiérrez, who also drove for Dale Coyne Racing. The last time a Dale Coyne Racing driver won Rookie of the Year with multiple full-time rookies was Alex Lloyd in 2010, who took the honor over Simona de Silvestro, Takuma Sato and Bertrand Baguette.
Conor Daly will start 13th and he missed advancing to round two by 0.1927 seconds. Despite being taken out on lap one at Portland and being credited with a 21st place result, Conor Daly will have his best average finish in a season of his IndyCar career in 2019. Entering Laguna Seca, his average finish is 12.0. His best single-season average finish was 14.375 driving for Dale Coyne Racing in 2016. The worst his average finish can be for 2019 is 13.714 but the best it could be is 10.428.
Felix Rosenqvist ran the fastest lap in the second group of round one but he did not advance after a spin brought out a local yellow, it took away his fastest two laps and he was not allowed to advance to the second round. Rosenqvist enters Laguna Seca leading the Rookie of the Year standings. Rosenqvist is looking to become the first driver to score a first career victory in a season finale since Ed Carpenter did it at Kentucky in 2011. This will be Rosenqvist's 17th career start. Five drivers have scored a first career victory in their 17th career start. Jim Packard was the first do it at Springfield in 1960. Lloyd Ruby did it one year to the day Packard did it on August 20, 1961 at Milwaukee. It would not happen again until Gil de Ferran did it on September 10, 1995 in the season finale at Laguna Seca. Mario Domínguez's first career victory was in his 17th career start in the infamous Surfers Paradise race on October 27, 2002. Will Power's first career victory was in his 17th career start on April 8, 2007, Easter Sunday, at the Champ Car season opener on the streets of Las Vegas.
The California-born Spencer Pigot ended up 15th in qualifying. Pigot was born in Pasadena, California but he has only one finish in the top ten in an IndyCar race held in The Golden State. His best finish was eighth at Long Beach in 2017. His average finish in California races is 16.667. Takuma Sato will start 16th. This is the third consecutive road/street course race Sato failed to make it out of the first round of qualifying. Sato sits sixth in the championship on 397 points. Sato is in position for his best championship finish in IndyCar. His previous best was eighth in 2017.
Zach Veach rolls off from 17th on the grid. Laguna Seca is one of four tracks on the current IndyCar schedule where Veach won at in Indy Lights. The other three are St. Petersburg, Barber and Road America. Veach has never finished in the top ten in IndyCar at those three tracks and his average finish at those three tracks in IndyCar is 16.285. Ed Jones starts 18th. Jones has not had a top ten finish in his last seven starts, matching the longest drought in his IndyCar career. The previous drought occurred in the final seven races of his rookie season in 2017 from Iowa to Sonoma. He ended the drought with an eighth place finish at St. Petersburg.
Sébastien Bourdais qualified 19th and he has been battling a neck injury this weekend. Tristan Vautier has been on standby for Bourdais. Bourdais enters Laguna Seca four points behind his Dale Coyne Racing teammate Ferrucci in the championship. On road and street courses this season Bourdais has finished ahead of Ferrucci on nine of 11 occasions. The only times Ferrucci bested Bourdais was St. Petersburg, where Bourdais lost an engine and Ferrucci finished ninth, and the Grand Prix of Indianapolis where Ferrucci was tenth and Bourdais was 11th. Charlie Kimball ended up 20th in qualifying. Kimball is coming off a tenth place finish at Portland. He is looking for top ten finishes in consecutive races for the first time since he finished eighth at Belle Isle and tenth at Texas last year.
Former teammates Tony Kanaan and Marco Andretti will make up row 11. Kanaan makes his first start at Laguna Seca in any competition since he won in the LMP2 class in the 2008 American Le Mans Series finale driving an Acura ARX-01B for Andretti Green Racing with Frank Montagny. Kanaan and Montagny were third overall, behind the two Audi R10 TDIs. Kanaan also ran the 2007 American Le Mans Series season finale at Laguna Seca in an Acura ARX-01a for Andretti Green Racing. Kanaan's co-driver in that 2007 race was Bryan Herta and they finished sixth overall, fourth in the LMP2 class. Andretti will be making a start at the 35th different track in his IndyCar career. The only track Andretti has won at in his first start at the track was Sonoma, where he scored his first career victory in his rookie season in 2006. Of the 35 tracks, he had top five finishes in his first start at six of them (Sonoma, Indianapolis, Iowa, Richmond, Barber, Milwaukee) and top ten finishes at an additional eight tracks (Austin, Long Beach, Fontana, Michigan, Nashville, Toronto, Kansas, Pocono). His average finish in his first start at a track is 12.64.
Like the Colton Herta and Graham Rahal, Marco Andretti could make him and his father Michael the first father-son pair with Laguna Seca victory in IndyCar history. Michael Andretti won at Laguna Seca in 1991 and 1992.
NBC's coverage of the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey will begin at 2:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:15 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 90 laps.
