Álex Palou scored his second pole position of 2024 with a lap of 67.1465 seconds around Laguna Seca on Saturday afternoon ahead of today’s Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey. It is the fifth pole position of Palou’s career. Palou has won from pole position on three of his first four occasions leading the grid to the green flag, including in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis back in May. Every time he has started on pole position at a road or street course, Palou has won the race. The exception was the 2023 Indianapolis 500, where the Catalan driver finished fourth. Palou has finished on the podium in all three of his Laguna Seca starts. He won the 2022 race from 11th position while leading 63 of 95 laps. It was a a rather tight qualifying session with less than a quarter of a second covering the top five times.
Kyle Kirkwood missed out on pole position by 0.0739 seconds. This is Kirkwood’s best starting position of the season, and his best since he won pole position at Long Beach in 2023, 21 races ago. Kirkwood is attempting to become the first Andretti Global driver with three consecutive top five finishes since Colton Herta ended the 2021 season with a pair of victories and opened the 2022 season with a fourth at St. Petersburg.
Felix Rosenqvist was 0.1452 seconds off Palou in third. This is the fourth time this season Rosenqvist has started in the top five. He has finished better than his starting position in only three races this season. He went from fifth to fourth at Barber Motorsports Park in April, and he started 22nd in the last two races before finishing eight and 14th at Detroit and Road America respectively. Rosenqvist has two top five finishes at Laguna Seca as well has two finishes of 19th.
Colton Herta fell 0.1507 seconds short of pole position and will start fourth. Herta could become the second driver with at least three Laguna Seca victories. Bobby Rahal has four victories at the circuit, though all of those were on the original 1.9-mile configuration. Herta has finished in the top five of the eighth race of the season for four consecutive years, but none of those results have been podium finishes.
Alexander Rossi is the top Chevrolet starter in fifth. Rossi was 0.2129 seconds slower than Palou. This is only Rossi’s second top five starting position this season. In 15 starts in his native California, Rossi has two victories, three top five finishes and ten top ten finishes, but his average finish is 11.2. He has finished 19th or worse in the other five races.
Christian Lundgaard was a distant sixth in the final round of qualifying, 0.3647 seconds from Palou. Lundgaard has finished outside the top ten in his last three starts, his longest drought since the first five starts of his IndyCar career. This is his first time starting in the top ten since he started on the front row for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis four races ago. The Dane has finished fifth and sixth in his first two Laguna Seca visits.
Scott McLaughlin fell 0.0269 seconds short of advancing from the second round of qualifying, and the New Zealander will take seventh on the grid. McLaughlin has led the most laps in three of the last five races, but he has only won one of them. Entering this season, he had led the most laps in a race on five occasions.
Romain Grosjean has his best starting position since the St. Petersburg season opener in eighth. Grosjean was 0.0561 seconds from advancing to the final round. Grosjean has had consecutive top ten finishes only four times in his IndyCar career. The most recent was last season when he was runner-up in consecutive races between Long Beach and Barber Motorsports Park.
Patricio O'Ward takes ninth on the grid. In eight starts in the state of California, O'Ward has never finished on the podium and he has an average finish of 12.375 in the Golden State. After three consecutive results outside the top ten, O’Ward enters Laguna Seca on a streak of three consecutive top ten finishes. He has only led nine laps this season, all in the Indianapolis 500. He led 15 laps in this race last year before finishing ninth after starting ninth.
Scott Dixon rounds out the top ten on the grid. This is a position better than where Dixon started on his way to victory last year at Laguna Seca. On seven occasions has Dixon won consecutive races at a circuit. He has never won from tenth starting position in his career. His 58 victories have come from 17 different starting positions in his career.
Marcus Armstrong is a position behind his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate and fellow New Zealander Dixon in 11th. A Chip Ganassi Racing driver has won the last two years at Laguna Seca from 11th starting position. Armstrong has made it out of the first round of qualifying at six races this season. He has finished better than his starting position in only two races this season. Armstrong has failed to finish three of seven races this year.
David Malukas starts 12th for his return to IndyCar. Malukas last competed in an IndyCar race 287 days ago in the 2023 season finale from Laguna Seca. He missed the opening six races due to a wrist injury. Malukas was contracted with Arrow McLaren but released from the team after missing the Barber Motorsports Park round at the end of April. Malukas has finished 13th and 20th in his first two Laguna Seca starts.
Speaking of returns, Agustín Canapino is back after sitting out of the Road America, and Canapino will start 13th, the best starting position of his IndyCar career. The Argentine was 0.0721 seconds from the second round of qualifying. Canapino was 14th in last year's Laguna Seca race. It is his only top fifteen finish on a permanent road course in IndyCar competition.
Josef Newgarden missed out on advancing from group two by 0.1159 seconds, and Newgarden will start 14th. This is the first time Newgarden is starting outside the top ten this season. Newgarden won the first race of summer in 2018 at Road America, however, in the first race of summer he has an average finish of 11.333 with six results outside the top ten.
Will Power makes it two Team Penske drivers starting outside the top ten for the first time this season as Power will roll from 15th. Power is the most recent IndyCar winner. He has not won consecutive races since he won the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and Indianapolis 500 in 2018. A podium finish at Laguna Seca would be Power's fifth in eight races. It would be the third time Power has had five podium finishes in the first eight races along with 2011 and 2014.
A race after starting on his first career pole position, Linus Lundqvist will start 16th, which is still his second-best starting position of the season. This is the seventh time in eight races Lundqvist has started outside the top fifteen in 2024. He has finished outside the top ten in six of seven races this season, and in nine of ten career starts.
Santino Ferrucci takes 17th on the grid. Ferrucci has finished better than his starting position in five of seven races this season. Only once this season has he finished more than five spots better than his starting position. Ferrucci went from 17th to seven at Barber in April.
Marcus Ericsson is a position behind Ferrucci in the championship and a position behind him on the grid. Ericsson has started outside the top fifteen in four of eight races. He has finished in the top ten of the eighth race of the season in all five seasons he has been in IndyCar. That includes two podium finishes and three top five finishes.
Graham Rahal will start 19th, the sixth time he has started outside the top ten this season and the fifth time he has started outside the top fifteen. With his top ten result at Road America, Rahal has 142 top ten finishes in 282 career starts, 50.354% of his finishes have been top ten results.
Rinus VeeKay has the #21 Chevrolet starting 20th. It is also the fifth time VeeKay has started outside the top fifteen this season. It has been 30 races since his most recent top five result. During that span, VeeKay has five top ten finishes. The Dutchman has finished 18th, 14th and 18th in three Laguna Seca starts.
Christian Rasmussen is starting a position worse than his Ed Carpenter Racing teammate in 21st. This is the third time Rasmussen will be starting 21st this season. Rasmussen was second and first in each of the Indy Lights doubleheaders held at Laguna Seca the last two years.
Kyffin Simpson qualified 22nd, the sixth time Simpson will be starting outside the top twenty this season. Simpson has finished outside the top twenty in three consecutive races after opening the season with four consecutive finishes inside the top twenty, three of which were top fifteen results.
Nolan Siegel makes his first start with Arrow McLaren from 23rd starting position. This is the second-worst starting spot for a McLaren driver this season. Théo Pourchaire started 24th at Barber. This is Siegel’s third team in his first three starts. He drove for Dale Coyne Racing at Long Beach and Juncos Hollinger Racing at Road America.
Pietro Fittipaldi will be on the outside of row 12. Fittipaldi has qualified outside the top twenty in five races this season. He has finished better than his starting position in only three of the first seven races. He has also been the worst Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing finisher in five of the first seven races. The only time he was the best RLLR finisher was when he was 13th at St. Petersburg.
For the 25th consecutive time, Sting Ray Robb will start outside the top twenty, and Robb will fittingly start 25th. Robb scored his best finish of his IndyCar career at Laguna Seca last year with a 12th from 24th on the grid.
Jack Harvey ended up 26th in qualifying. This is the third time Harvey will be outside the top 25 this season. He has never finished in the top fifteen when starting outside the top 25. This is the ninth time the Briton is starting worse than 25th in his career. Harvey's best finish in three Laguna Seca starts is 15th.
Luca Ghiotto rounds out the grid, as the two Dale Coyne Racing drivers take the final two spots on the grid. Ghiotto could become the third Italian driver to win race at Laguna Seca. Alex Zanardi and Max Papis won at this circuit in 1996 and 2001 respectively.
USA's coverage of the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey begins at 6:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 95 laps.
