Christian Lundgaard won his first career IndyCar pole position with a lap of 69.3321 seconds around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course ahead of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. This is Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's first pole position since the second race of the 2020 Gateway doubleheader with Takuma Sato. Lundgaard picked up his first career podium finish in the most recent IMS road course race held last July. This will be Lundgaard's 23rd career start. Only two drivers have had their first career victory in their 23rd start: Greg Moore and Jaques Lazier. The last two first-time winners in IndyCar both came from pole position. RLLR’s most recent victory was the 2020 Indianapolis 500 with Sato.
Felix Rosenqvist fell 0.0027 seconds shy of winning his second pole position of the season and his third career pole on the IMS road course. Rosenqvist will start second on an all-Scandinavian front row. Rosenqvist was sixth and ninth in last year's races on the IMS road course. His best finish on this course was fifth in the first race of the 2020 Harvest Grand Prix.
Álex Palou was 0.0459 seconds off Lundgaard and Palou will start third, his third consecutive race starting inside the top five. Palou has opened the 2023 season with four consecutive top ten finishes for the second consecutive season. His longest top ten finish streak is seven races, which covered the final three events of 2021 and the first four races of 2022.
Jack Harvey ended up fourth in qualifying, his best starting position since he started third at Road America in 2021. Harvey was 0.0899 seconds off his RLLR teammate Lundgaard, the closest the top four qualifiers have been in the Fast Six qualifying format. Harvey has four top ten finishes in eighth IMS road course starts. He had started in the top ten in seven of his first eight IMS road course starts.
Patricio O'Ward will start fifth in car #5. O'Ward was 0.2101 seconds off the top time. O'Ward's best finish on the IMS road course is fifth. He scored that finish in the second race of the 2020 Harvest Grand Prix and in the August 2021 race. He was 19th and 12th in the two IMS road course races last year. The Mexican has three top five finishes in four races this season and five top five finishes in his last seven starts dating back to last season.
Kyle Kirkwood will start sixth after narrowly making it through to the final round of qualifying. With 0.2979 covering the top six, it was the fourth closest Fast Six session since the adoption of this qualifying format. Kirkwood has finished on the lead lap in the last two races. It is the first time Kirkwood has had consecutive lead lap finishes in his IndyCar career.
Marcus Ericsson fell 0.0288 seconds short of advancing to the third round of qualifying and Ericsson will start seventh. The Swede could become the first Indianapolis 500 winner to win the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in the following year. Last year, Ericsson was fourth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, his only top five finish in eight IMS road course starts.
Graham Rahal ended up eighth in qualifying, shattering his previous best starting position this season of 19th. This is Rahal's best starting position since he started fifth at Portland in 2021. Rahal has 11 top ten finishes in 13 IMS road course starts. He has finished better than his starting position in ten of those races. It has been 94 races since Rahal's most recent victory.
Scott Dixon is starting ninth in car #9. Dixon has won from ninth twice in his career, Sonoma 2015 and the first race of the 2020 Road America doubleheader. Dixon has only led five laps since his most recent victory at Nashville eight races ago. Dixon led two laps at St. Petersburg and three laps at Texas. He has not finished better than eighth in his six IMS road course starts since his victory at the track in July 2020.
Alexander Rossi will start tenth. This is the third time Arrow McLaren has had all three cars start in the top ten this season. The worst starting position for McLaren this season is 12th. Rossi returns to the location of his most recent victory. Rossi has eight top ten finishes on the IMS road course. His first career top ten finish came in the 2016 Grand Prix of Indianapolis, two weeks prior to his Indianapolis 500 victory.
Marcus Armstrong has car #11 rolling off from 11th on the grid, a career best for him. Armstrong has not finished worse than 11th in his first three starts, including finishing 11th at Barber Motorsports Park from 26th on the grid. Two of the last three first time winners had finished 11th in the start prior to their victory. The most recent driver to have a first career victory in his fourth career start was Sébastien Bourdais at Lausitz in 2003.
Will Power has car #12 in 12th on the grid, matching his worst starting position on the IMS road course. Power has not started in the top five this season. Last year, Power had five consecutive races without a top ten starting position from the Indianapolis 500 through Toronto. Power has only won from 12th on the grid once, it was the 2012 Long Beach race after Power had to serve a ten-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change.
Josef Newgarden was 0.0059 seconds off advancing from group one in the first round of qualifying and Newgarden will start 13th. He won the second race of the season at Texas, but that is his only top five finish this season. Newgarden is attempting to avoid having fewer than two top five finishes in the first five races of a season since 2016. He has four top five finishes in 13 IMS road course starts.
Colton Herta won the Grand Prix of Indianapolis from 14th on the grid last year and Herta will start 14th for this year's race. He started 14th in the most recent race at Barber as well. Herta has only led four laps in his last eight starts. All four of those laps led came at Texas last month. This is the fewest laps Herta has led in a eight-race stretch since he led only one lap in the first eight races of the 2020 season.
Devlin DeFrancesco qualified 15th, his best start on a road/street course since he started 14th in the IMS road course race held last July. DeFrancesco has finished worse than his starting position in three of four races this season. In his previous four times starting in the top fifteen he finished worse than his starting position.
Scott McLaughlin ended up 16th in qualifying, his worst starting position since he started 26th in last year's Indianapolis 500. McLaughlin could become the third driver to win the race prior to the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and the IMS road course race. Simon Pagenaud was the first to do it in 2016 when Pagenaud won three consecutive races. Scott Dixon did it in 2020. Both those drivers went on to win the championship in those respective seasons.
Rinus VeeKay starts 17th, his worst starting position on the IMS road course since he was 18th for his first visit to the track in July 2020. VeeKay went from 18th to fifth in that race. The Dutchman has matched his longest top ten finish drought at eight races. VeeKay has finished in the top ten in at least one race on the IMS road course in each of his first three IndyCar seasons.
Romain Grosjean will start 18th. Grosjean could become the first driver to pick up his first career victory after finishing in the race prior since Robert Doornbos won at Mont-Tremblant in 2007, a week after finishing second at Cleveland. He would be the first driver to score his first career victory after consecutive runner-up finishes since Max Papis won the 2000 CART season opener at Homestead after finishing 1999 with a pair of second-place finishes.
Simon Pagenaud is a spot behind his fellow countryman Grosjean in 19th on the grid. Pagenaud's most recent top five finish came in this race last year when he was second to Colton Herta. Pagenaud has won the fifth race of the season three times in his career, twice at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
David Malukas rounds out the top twenty on the grid. Dale Coyne Racing has had a top ten finisher in five consecutive Grand Prix of Indianapolis and in six of the last seven years. Malukas was 12th and 13th in the two IMS road course races last year.
Conor Daly ended up 21st in qualifying, the fourth time in five races Daly has qualified outside the top twenty. The Hoosier was fifth in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis last year. It was his first top ten finish on the IMS road course since he was sixth in his first start on the circuit in 2016.
Sting Ray Robb starts 22nd, the first time he has started 22nd after starting 23rd, 23rd, 21st and 23rd in the first four races. Robb was third in both Indy Lights races held last year on the IMS road course. He swept the Indy Pro 2000 triple-header held at the track in September 2020.
Benjamin Pedersen is 23rd on the grid. Pedersen completed all 90 laps at Barber, the first time he has finished on the lead lap in his IndyCar career. He was two laps down at Texas and three laps down at Long Beach.
Callum Ilott will start 24th, his worst starting position of the season. Ilott picked up his first career top ten finish in IndyCar in this race last year. He was eighth after starting seventh, the first top ten starting position in IndyCar as well. This will be Ilott's 24th career start. No driver has had a first career victory come in their 24th career start.
Agustín Canapino starts 25th, the fourth time he has started outside the top twenty this season. Canapino has an average finish of 25.5 over his last two races after Canapino finished 12th in both the first two races of 2023.
Hélio Castroneves lost an engine in second practice and barely made it on track for qualifying. Castroneves will start 26th. The Brazilian had finished no worse than sixth in his first five starts on the IMS road course with an average finish of 4.4. In his last six IMS road course starts, his best finish is 14th and his average finish is 19.333.
Santino Ferrucci rounds out the grid in 27th. Ferrucci has two top ten finishes on the IMS road course. This is one of six tracks where Ferrucci has multiple top ten finishes. The others are the Indianapolis oval, Texas, Belle Isle, Road America and Gateway.
NBC's coverage of the Tenth Grand Prix of Indianapolis begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:30 p.m. The race is scheduled for 85 laps.
