Josef Newgarden won pole position for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix on the final lap of qualifying. Newgarden ran a 75.2153 in the final round to take the top spot. This is the 16th pole position of his career. He has won from pole position four times, most recently at Mid-Ohio last year. Newgarden is the seventh different pole winner this season in seven races. He does not have a top ten finish in his last three starts, meaning he doesn't have a top five finis in his last three starts. The only time he has gone four races without a top five finish driving for Team Penske was a five race stretch in 2018 between the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and Texas.
Takuma Sato was 0.1337 off pole position and he will start second. This is Sato’s first front row start since he was on pole position for the second Gateway race in 2020 and his first front row start on a road/street circuit since he won from pole position at Barber in 2019. He has not had a top five finish in his last 15 starts. Sato's last top five finish was a fourth in the first Belle Isle race. Sato had finished in the top five in the last three Saturday Belle Isle races. He has had at least one top five finish at Belle Isle in the last four seasons IndyCar raced this circuit.
Simon Pagenaud leads an all-Meyer Shank Racing row two with Hélio Castroneves starting fourth. Every time Pagenaud has been the top Meyer Shank Racing qualifier, Castroneves has been the top MSR finisher. Every time Castroneves has been the top MSR qualifier, Pagenaud has been the top MSR finisher. This is Pagenaud’s best Belle Isle starting position since he swept the pole positions in 2016. Castroneves has eight top ten finishes in his last ten Belle Isle starts. Four of those finishes were top five results. This is the best starting position for both MSR drivers.
Patricio O'Ward has the #5 Arrow McLaren SP Chevrolet starting fifth. O’Ward could join Hélio Castroneves, Sébastien Bourdais and Graham Rahal as the only drivers to win consecutive Belle Isle races. O’Ward started fifth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis last month and finished 19th.
David Malukas made the Fast Six for the first time in his IndyCar career and Malukas will start sixth. He is the highest placed driver in the championship without a top ten finish. Malukas sits 19th on 90 points. Dale Coyne Racing's best finish in the last eight Belle Isle races is ninth.
Colton Herta is coming off a 30th-place finish at Indianapolis and he qualified seventh for this race. Indianapolis was the third time Herta has finished outside the top ten this season. This is the third time in four full seasons Herta has finished outside the top ten in at least three of the first six races of the season.
Marcus Ericsson starts eighth in the #8 Honda. Ericsson has not had consecutive victories since the 2009 British Formula Three season when he won the second Rockingham race and the first Hockenheim race on May 31 and June 6 respectively.
New Zealand owns row five with Scott Dixon on the inside and Scott McLaughlin on the outside. Dixon does not have a podium finish this season. This the first time he has that had a podium result in the first six races since the 2005 season. Dixon has only four podium results in 20 Belle Isle starts, three of which are victories. McLaughlin's lone top ten finish on a street course his IndyCar career was his St. Petersburg victory earlier this season.
Alexander Rossi is coming off his first top five finish of the season and he starts 11th for this race. Rossi has not had consecutive top five finishes since he had four consecutive podium finishes between the Mid-Ohio doubleheader and Harvest Grand Prix doubleheader in 2020.
Romain Grosjean had an accident in round two of qualifying and this cost Grosjean his fastest two laps. He will start 12th. After finishes of 17th and 31st between the two Indianapolis races, Grsojean is looking to avoid his first top ten drought of three races this weekend. The bad news is he was 23rd and 24th between the two Belle Isle races last year.
Conor Daly leads an all-Ed Carpenter Racing row seven. Daly missed out on advancing in group one by 0.0087 seconds. He has consecutive top ten finishes for the first time since the 2020 Gateway doubleheader. Daly has not had a top ten finish on a street circuit since he was sixth in the second Belle Isle race in 2016.
Rinus VeeKay was 0.1571 seconds shy of advancing from group two. VeeKay could become the sixth driver in history to finish last in the Indianapolis 500 and then win the following race. Scott Sharp was the last to do it in 2001. The first driver to do it was Cliff Woodbury. Woodbury was 33rd in the 1929 Indianapolis 500 and then he won the 100-mile race in Detroit ten days later.
Last year, both Belle Isle races were won from row eight. Kyle Kirkwood and Will Power occupy row eight for the lone Belle Isle race this year. Kirkwood's only top ten finish was tenth on the streets of Long Beach. Kirkwood won yesterday’s IMSA race in the GT Dayton class sharing a Lexus with Ben Barnicoat. Power has not won a street course race since 2016 when he won at Belle Isle and Toronto that season.
Santino Ferrucci takes 17th on the grid. Ferrucci fills in the #77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet in place of the injured Callum Ilott. Ferrucci has six top ten finishes in his last seven starts, which includes top ten finishes in the two Belle Isle races last year. Juncos Hollinger Racing will be the fourth team Ferrucci has driven for in his IndyCar career and his third different team in his last three starts.
Álex Palou has his worst starting position of the season in 18th. Palou has three consecutive top five finishes and he has five consecutive top ten finishes in street course races, three of which are podium results.
Christian Lundgaard leads an all-Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing row ten, and Lundgaard was the best RLLR qualifier. At no point has Lundgaard been the worst RLLR finisher this season, but the only time he has been the top RLLR finisher was the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, where he finished ninth.
Jack Harvey will start to Lundgaard’s outside. Harvey was outside the top fifteen in the two Belle Isle races last year, his first two starts on the circuit. The worst starting position for a Belle Isle winner is 20th. Carlos Muñoz won from 20th in changing conditions during the first race in 2015.
Devlin DeFrancesco will start 21st. DeFrancesco was seventh and fifth in the Indy Lights races at Belle Isle last year. He has finished outside the top twenty in three of four road/street course races this season.
Jimmie Johnson gets his best starting position this season on a road/street course in 22nd. Johnson’s only lead lap finish this season was the Texas race in March. Johnson's only lead lap finish on a street course in his IndyCar career was last season's Long Beach season finale.
Graham Rahal matches his worst Belle Isle starting position in 23rd. Rahal has five consecutive top ten finishes and 12 top ten finishes in the last 16 Belle Isle races, which includes his run from 23rd to ninth in the first race in 2013.
Tatiana Calderón gets her best starting position of the season in 24th. Calderón was the top A.J. Foyt Racing finisher in her last start at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Calderón was 15th and it was her first lead lap finish in IndyCar.
Felix Rosenqvist had his fastest two laps erased for interference in round one of qualifying, dropping Rosenqvist to last in his group and 25th on the grid. He has consecutive top ten finishes for the first time since he had a three-race stretch in 2020 between the Gateway doubleheader and Mid-Ohio. The only time Rosenqvist has had consecutive top five finishes were at Portland and Laguna Seca in 2019, the final two races of his rookie season. He is ninth in the championship, the first time he has been ranked in the top ten since after the second Harvest Grand Prix race in 2020.
Dalton Kellett suffered and accident in second practice and was unable to qualifying. However, Keller also has a six-spot grid penalty due to an unapproved engine change. This drops Kellett to last on the grid. He has finished outside the top twenty in five of six races this season.
USA's coverage of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:30 p.m. The race is scheduled for 70 laps.
