Scott McLaughlin begins his third IndyCar season with his first career pole position. The New Zealander took the top spot with a time of 59.4821 seconds in the final round of qualifying. It is McLaughlin's first career pole position. His previous best start in IndyCar was fifth in last year's Grand Prix of Indianapolis. His previous best starting position on a street course was 13th at Long Beach, the most recent IndyCar race. He had not started in the top ten in his previous 11 starts. McLaughlin joins Scott Dixon as the only New Zealanders to win a pole position in IndyCar. This is only the second time McLaughlin has been the top Penske qualifier in his IndyCar career. The other time was last year's Indianapolis 500 when he started 17th. McLaughlin makes his 18th start this weekend. Four drivers have had their first career victory in their 18th start: Peter DePaolo, Rodger Ward, Paul Tracy and Ryan Hunter-Reay.
Will Power missed out on pole position by 0.1237 seconds, but Power makes it an all-Penske front row. This is the first time Penske has swept a front row since the second Iowa race in 2020, 24 races ago. Since missing the 2016 St. Petersburg race due to an inner ear problem, Power has only one top five finish in his last five St. Petersburg starts with an average finish of 12.8. In his first eight St. Petersburg starts, he had two victories, four podium finishes, seven top ten finishes and an average finish of 5.375.
Colton Herta starts on the second row. Herta is attempting to become the first driver to win the season opener after winning the season finale in the previous season since Will Power did it over 2013 and 2014. Power won the final two races in 2013, as Herta did in 2020, and Power went on to win the championship in 2014. The only time third starting position has won at St. Petersburg was Juan Pablo Montoya in 2015. It was Montoya's second consecutive St. Petersburg victory. Herta won last year at St. Petersburg.
After starting outside the top twenty in the final four races of 2021 and in five of the final six races, Rinus VeeKay qualified fourth for the 2022 season opener. VeeKay's ninth-place finish last year at St. Petersburg matched Ed Carpenter Racing's best result at the track. Luca Filippi was ninth in the 2015 St. Petersburg race driving for then CFH Racing, as the team had merged with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing.
Romain Grosjean makes his Andretti Autosport debut from fifth on the grid. Grosjean is the first driver other than Ryan Hunter-Reay to drive car #28 since reunification in 2008. The last driver that wasn't Hunter-Reay to drive car #28 in any IndyCar race was Mario Domínguez in the 2007 Champ Car finale in Mexico City. Domínguez drove for Pacific Coast Motorsports and finished eighth.
Another driver make a team debut is Simon Pagenaud, and Pagenaud makes it an all-French row three. The Meyer Shank Racing driver is making his first start in a Honda-powered car since the 2014 season finale at Fontana. In Pagenaud's three full seasons driving Honda-powered cars, he finished fifth, third and fifth in the championship.
Scott Dixon leads an all-Ganassi row four. Dixon is making his 352nd IndyCar start this weekend. A victory would put him level for second all-time with Mario Andretti on 52 victories. Andretti's 52nd victory was in his 377th start. Dixon has made 13 starts since his 51st victory. Andretti made 78 starts between his 51st and 52nd victories. Dixon has won from seventh three times in his career: Texas 2015, Texas 2018, and the 2020 Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
Marcus Ericsson ended up eighth in qualifying, his best starting position at St. Petersburg. Ericsson's previous best was 15th in 2020. He has finished seventh in the last two St. Petersburg races. Prior to his accident at Long Beach, Ericsson had eight consecutive top ten finishes.
The top two in the championship last year share row five, but inverse of how they finished in the standings. Josef Newgarden will roll off from ninth position. Newgarden has three consecutive podium finishes at St. Petersburg. The only time Newgarden has had four consecutive podium finishes at a track is from 2015 to 2018 at Barber Motorsports Park. He also has three consecutive podium finishes at Texas Motor Speedway.
Álex Palou starts tenth in car #10. It is the second consecutive year Palou has started tenth at St. Petersburg. He did start tenth in last year's season finale at Long Beach and finished fourth. Palou is looking to become the first defending champion to win a season opener since Dario Franchitti won at St. Petersburg in the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda in 2011.
Graham Rahal begins the 2022 season from 11th starting position. Rahal's average finish at St. Peterburg is 11.2307 with only four top ten finishes in 13 starts. This will be the tenth time Rahal has started 11th in his career. He has never finished worse than 11th when starting 11th. He went from 11th to fifth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis last year.
Kyle Kirkwood made it out of row one on his IndyCar debut, and the Floridan will start 12th. Kirkwood is from Jupiter, Florida. No Florida-born driver has ever won an IndyCar race. The last time a driver won from 12th was Tony Kanaan in the 2013 Indianapolis 500. The only time a driver has won from 12th on a street course was Will Power at Long Beach in 2012, which came after Power served a ten-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change.
Alexander Rossi was 0.0783 seconds short of making it out of group one and Rossi will start 13th. Rossi had consecutive top ten finishes only once in 2021 when he was seventh at Road America and fifth at Mid-Ohio. At no point in 2021 did Rossi have consecutive finishes outside the top ten. He ended last year with a sixth-place finish at Long Beach. He has not had consecutive top five finishes since he had four consecutive podium finishes between the Mid-Ohio doubleheader and Harvest Grand Prix doubleheader at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in 2020.
Dalton Kellett will be making his 25th start this weekend and he will do it from a career-best 14h starting position. Kellett missed out on advancing by 0.0565 seconds. It is the first time he has qualified in the top fifteen. His previous best starting position was 19th at Nashville last year. Kellett is the 15th Canadian to reach the 25th start milestone in IndyCar.
Christian Lundgaard makes his second career IndyCar start from 15th on the grid. Lundgaard became the first Danish driver to lead in IndyCar when he led two laps at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course last August. No Danish driver has ever finished in the top five of an IndyCar race.
Patricio O'Ward brushed the wall in qualifying and could not advance from round one. O'Ward will take 16th on the grid. He enters 2022 coming off his worst IndyCar finish in 27th at Long Beach. Long Beach was the first retirement in O'Ward's IndyCar career, coming in his 38th career start. O'Ward did win from 16th at Belle Isle last year.
Hélio Castroneves returns to St. Petersburg for the first time since 2017, and the three-time St. Petersburg winner starts 17th. Castroneves has six consecutive top ten finishes at St. Petersburg, every start he has made in the DW12-era. Three of those finishes are podium results, five are top five finishes and his worst result is sixth.
Devlin DeFrancesco joins Castroneves on row nine. DeFrancesco will become the first Canadian driver born in the 21st century to make an IndyCar start. Along with David Malukas, they come the fourth and fifth drivers overall born in the 21st century to start an IndyCar race.
Callum Ilott wound up 19th in his first St. Petersburg experience. This will be Juncos Hollinger Racing's second St. Petersburg appearance. The team was 22nd out of 24 cars in 2018 with Austrian René Binder driving.
Conor Daly will start 20th for the third time in five St. Petersburg appearances. Daly has not had a top ten finish in his last 13 street course starts. Daly's last top ten finish on a street course was sixth in the second Belle Isle race in 2016.
Felix Rosenqvist ended up 21st in qualifying, only the fourth time Rosenqvist has started outside the top twenty in 46 IndyCar appearances. After finishing fourth on his IndyCar debut in the 2019 season opener at St. Petersburg, Rosenqvist has finished 20th and 21st in the last two season openers.
Takuma Sato will have his worst St. Petersburg starting position in 22nd. This is Sato's 22nd consecutive race starting outside the top ten. Sato will be driving for his fifth IndyCar team, as he has moved to Dale Coyne Racing. Sato has won with three of his previous four teams. The only team he didn't win with was KV Racing.
Jack Harvey had an accident in the second practice session, but the team was able to repair the car in time for qualifying. Unfortunately, Harvey could only end up 23rd, his worst St. Petersburg starting position. Harvey could become the first Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver to score a first career victory with the team since Buddy Rice won the Indianapolis 500 in 2004.
David Malukas lost his fastest two laps in the first round of qualifying for interference, dropping him to 24th on the grid. Malukas is one of seven drivers entered in this race that have won at St. Petersburg in Indy Lights. Only Josef Newgarden has won in Indy Lights and IndyCar at St. Petersburg.
Tatiana Calderón will make her IndyCar debut from 25th. Calderón will become the seventh Colombian driver to start an IndyCar race after Roberto Guerrero, Juan Pablo Montoya, Sebastián Saavedra, Carlos Muñoz, Carlos Huertas and Gabby Chaves.
Jimmie Johnson rounds out the grid in 26th position. Johnson has finished in the top twenty in his last four starts after having only one top twenty finish in his first eight IndyCar starts. Despite Johnson's record last year, this will be the first time he has started dead last in his IndyCar career.
NBC's coverage of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg begins at noon with green flag scheduled for 12:30 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 100 laps.
