Felix Rosenqvist picked up his second pole position of the season and his second ever at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course after the Swede ran a lap of 70.2265 seconds in the final round of qualifying for the Gallagher Grand Prix. Rosenqvist is only the second driver to win multiple IndyCar pole positions at the IMS road course after only Will Power, who has won six of the first 12 pole positions on the IMS road course. Rosenqvist's first career pole position was at this track in 2019, his fifth career start. His second career pole position was earlier this season at Texas Motor Speedway. He has only led 12 laps this season, four of which were on the IMS road course in May. He also led seven laps at Road America and one at Toronto.
Alexander Rossi was over a quarter second of Rosenqvist's pole position time and Rossi will start on the outside of row one. This is the second time Rossi has started on the front row this season. The other was his pole position at Road America in June. This is his best starting position ever on the IMS road course. Rossi's winless streak is up to 49 races. His most recent victory was from second on the grid way back at Road America in 2019. The second starting position has produced five winners this season. Second on the grid has won twice on the IMS road course. Rossi has four consecutie finishes outside the top ten for the first time since his rookie season. He has never had five consecutive results outside the top ten in his IndyCar career.
Patricio O'Ward was 0.3872 seconds off his Arrow McLaren SP teammate Rosenqvist and he will start third. This is only the fourth time O'Ward has started behind Rosenqvist this season. On three of those occasions did Rosenqvist start in the top five. This is the first time O'Ward has qualified in the top five and not been the top AMSP start. After finishing second and first at Iowa, O'Ward enters this weekend hoping to score three consecutive podium finishes for the first time in his IndyCar career. All four of his consecutive podium finish streak have come at doubleheader weekends. This is the third time one of O'Ward's victories is followed by an IMS road course race. He finished 15th and 19th in the previous two IMS road course races after one of his victories.
Will Power will have to wait another week for his potential 67th IndyCar pole position, but Power will start fourth after qualifying 0.3959 seconds behind Rosenqvist. Coincidentally, Power started fourth at Texas, the other race Rosenqvist started from pole position. Power has won from fourth four times in his career, first at Long Beach in 2008 then at St. Petersburg in 2014 before Toronto in 2016 before finally Gateway in 2018. Power is eighth all-time in laps led with 4,681. He is 202 laps behind Bobby Unser in seventh. Power scored fastest lap in both Iowa races. The last time a driver scored fastest lap in at least three consecutive races was Sébastien Bourdais in the 2007 Champ Car season when Bourdais had six consecutive fastest laps at Houston, Portland, Cleveland, Mont-Tremblant, Toronto and Edmonton.
Josef Newgarden comes back after an accident in the second Iowa race to start fifth for this IMS road course race. Newgarden was 0.4703 off Rosenqvist. He is coming off his worst finish on the IMS road course in May when he finished 25th after contact with Will Power and Jack Harvey during the race. His only podium finish on the IMS road course was his victory in the first Harvest Grand Prix race in 2020. He has not had consecutive finishes outside the top twenty since the 2015 Sonoma season finale and 2016 St. Petersburg season opener. Newgarden is 16th all-time in laps led with 3,286. Last week, he became the 17th driver to reach the 3,000 laps led milestone.
Christian Lundgaard returns to the place of his IndyCar debut just under a year after he started fourth in his first time in IndyCar. Lundgaard will start sixth after qualifying 0.5015 seconds behind Roseqnvist. This is the first time Lundgaard has made the Fast Six since his debut last year. Lundgaard is the first time a Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing car has made the Fast Six this season. This will be Lundgaard's 14th career start. Seven drivers have had their first career victory come in their 14th career start. The most recent two are Jacques Villeneuve in 1994 and Bruno Junqueira in 2001, and both won at Road America.
Álex Palou was 0.0269 off of advancing to the final round of qualifying and Palou will start seventh. He has never won from outside the top five in his IndyCar career. He has only one podium finish in his last eight starts after having five podium finishes in his previous eight starts and 11 podium finishes in 20 races.
Rinus VeeKay will start eighth for the third consecutive race and for the fourth time this season. VeeKay's previous three times starting eighth were all on ovals. VeeKay won from seventh in last year's Grand Prix of Indianapolis. The last IndyCar race won from eighth on the grid was the 2021 Indianapolis 500 with Hélio Castroneves as the victor.
Colton Herta is starting ninth, five spots better than where Herta started in his Grand Prix of Indianapolis victory this May. Herta also started ninth at Texas, the other race Rosenqvist started on pole position this season. Herta was outside the top ten in both Iowa races. He has not had three consecutive finishes outside the top ten since from the Grand Prix of Indianapolis to the Indianapolis 500 and Belle Isle race one last year.
Conor Daly rounds out the top ten, the third consecutive races Daly has started inside the top ten. It is the first time he has started inside the top ten in three consecutive races in his IndyCar career. This is the fourth consecutive IMS road course race Daly is starting in the top ten. He has only two top ten finishes at this track, sixth in 2016 and fifth this past May.
David Malukas made it out of the first round of qualifying and Malukas will start 11th. He has made it out of the first round of qualifying in four of the last five occasions after not making it out of round one in the first five chances this season. Malukas won on the IMS road course last year in Indy Lights. Dale Coyne Racing has had at least one top ten finisher in four consecutive IMS road course races and in seven of the last eight.
Simon Pagenaud rounds out row six. IndyCar has not had a race won from 12th on the grid since the 2013 Indianapolis 500 with Tony Kanaan. The 12th-place starter has finished in the top ten only once this season, eighth in the first Iowa race with Marcus Ericsson. Pagenaud has three victories and five podium finishes on the IMS road course, including a runner-up result in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May.
Jack Harvey starts 13th, his fourth consecutive race starting 13th to better. Harvey was 0.0653 seconds shy of making it to round two. Prior to this four race stretch, Harvey had started in the top thirteen only once this season. He has four top ten finishes in seven IMS starts and he was 13th on this track in May. Harvey has finished in the top twenty in ten of 11 starts this season but he has zero top ten finishes.
Devlin DeFrancesco qualified 14th, his second best starting position of the season after making the second round of qualifying at Toronto two weeks ago. DeFrancesco was 0.0834 seconds short of making it to the second round of qualifying for the second time in his IndyCar career. He was 21st in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May.
Scott McLaughlin starts 15th, his worst state position outside of the Indianapolis 500 this season. McLaughlin's three worst striating positions this season have all been at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. After starting fifth and finishing eighth in his first IMS road course appearance, he has finished 23rd and 20th.
Hélio Castroneves joins the driver who has replaced him in the #3 Chevrolet for Team Penske on row eighth. This is the ninth time this season Castroneves is starting outside the top fifteen this season. He has finished outside the top fifteen in seven races, including the last three. He has finished outside the top fifteen in four of the last five IMS road course races.
Graham Rahal qualified 17th, his eighth time starting outside the top fifteen this season. Rahal had ten consecutive top ten finishes on the IMS road course before he finished 16th here in May. In seven of those ten races, he started outside the top ten and got a top ten result. On four of those occasions, he went from outside the top fifteen into the top ten.
Takuma Sato joins his former Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing teammate on row nine. Sato has never started in the top ten on the IMS road course. He picked up his best finish on this track in May when he finished seventh. It was his sixth top ten finish on the IMS road course.
Callum Ilott starts 19th. This is Ilott's worst starting position on a road/street course since Long Beach, where he started 21st. He started 19th and finished 19th at St. Petersburg in February. His one and only top ten finish in IndyCar came at the IMS road course in May when he finished eighth, but he started seventh in that race.
Scott Dixon finds himself 20th on the grid, only one starting position better than he was in May, but Dixon finished tenth that day. This will be the sixth consecutive IMS road course race he has started outside the top ten. Is one of four drivers tied for the all-time record of IndyCar victories from outside a top ten starting position. Dixon, Al Unser, Jr., Dan Wheldon and Sébastien Bourdais have all won four times from outside the top ten.
Kyle Kirkwood is looking for his second top ten finish of the season and Kirkwood will search for it from 21st starting position. He has retired from six of 12 races this season, but only twice has he failed to make it through the first half of a race, Texas and Mid-Ohio.
Romain Grosjean had started in the top ten of all three of his IMS road course starts, but this time Grosjean will roll off from 22nd position, the worst starting position of his IndyCar career. He has three top ten finishes in the last five races.
Jimmie Johnson has qualified in 23rd, the ninth time he is starting outside the top twenty this season. Johnson is coming off his first top five finish in IndyCar. It took him 24 starts to get a top five finish in IndyCar. It took him seven races to get his first top five finish in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Dalton Kellett is starting 24th, his 12th consecutive race starting outside the top twenty. Kellett had started 23rd or 26th in six consecutive races. He has only three top twenty finishes this season. He has been the top A.J. Foyt Racing finisher in three of the last six race.
Marcus Ericsson had a mechanical issue in qualifying and Ericsson was unable to complete a lap in his qualifying group. Because of that, Ericsson will start 25th, his worst starting position in IndyCar. He is also taking an engine change ahead of this race. Only three IndyCar races have been won from 25th in its over century worth history, the 1974 Indianapolis 500 with Johnny Rutherford, the 1981 Milwaukee race when Mike Mosley won as a promoter's option, and the 2001 Laguna Seca race when Max Papis won.
NBC's coverage of the Gallagher Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course begins at noon ET with green flag scheduled for 12:20 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 85 laps.
