David Malukas scored his first career pole position with a two-lap average at 175.383 mph, 41.0530 seconds, in qualifying from Phoenix Raceway. This will be the third time in the last four races Malukas has started on the front row. It will be his fifth consecutive start inside the top five. This will be his 15th time starting in the top five in his IndyCar career. However, Malukas’ average finish when starting in the top five is 14.2857 with one top five finish and four top ten finishes. Two Team Penske drivers have had their first victory with the team come in their second start. Gary Bettenhausen won in his second Penske start at Trenton on April 13, 1982. Danny Sullivan’s first Penske victory was also in his second Penske start, and it was the 1985 Indianapolis 500.
Josef Newgarden makes it an all-Team Penske front row as Newgarden was 0.1963 seconds off his teammate’s pole-winning run. Newgarden has won the second race of the season three times in his career, including at Phoenix in 2018. He enters this weekend with three consecutive top ten finishes dating back to last season. It is the first time Newgarden has had three consecutive top ten finishes since 2023 when he swept the Iowa doubleheader and then was fourth on the streets of Nashville.
Graham Rahal makes it three consecutive Americans on the grid as Rahal was 0.328 seconds behind Malukas. This is Rahal’s best start on an oval since Texas 2012 when he started third. He was second in that race. Rahal has finished outside the top ten in ten consecutive oval races. His last top ten finish on an oval was eighth in the second Iowa race in 2023. Rahal’s most recent top five on an oval was third in the second Texas race in 2021.
Mick Schumacher’s oval debut will start from fourth on the grid, and it rounds out an all-Rahal Lettermam Lanigan Racing second row. This is the first time RLLR has multiple top five starters since last year’s Grand Prix of Indianapolis when all three car started in the top five. Schumacher is the first German to start an oval race since Timo Glock, who was eighth in the 2005 Las Vegas Champ Car race.
Scott McLaughlin is the worst Team Penske starter in fifth. McLaughlin was 0.4579 seconds off Malukas. McLaughlin has three consecutive podium finishes. He has never had four consecutive podium finishes. McLaughlin has finished outside the top twenty in the second race of the season the last two years.
Alexander Rossi takes sixth on the grid, matching his best starting position with Ed Carpenter Racing. Rossi was the fastest in the preseason test at Phoenix. He has not won a race in 55 starts. He has not won on an oval since August 19, 2018 at Pocono.
Patricio O'Ward is starting seventh. The most recent Phoenix race in 2018 was won from seventh starting position. O'Ward has 49 career top five finishes entering this weekend. He had five top five finishes in six oval races last season, and he has nine top five finishes in the last 13 oval races.
Rinus VeeKay slots into eighth. Twice has VeeKay opened the season with consecutive top ten finishes, however, in each of those seasons, he was sixth in the opening race. This was the second consecutive season VeeKay opened the year with a ninth-place results.
Nolan Siegel is directly behind his Arrow McLaren teammate O’Ward in ninth starting position. This snaps a streak of six consecutive starts outside the top ten for Siegel. He started eighth in the first Iowa race last year before getting into an accident. In 11 oval starts, Siegel's average finish is 17.5454.
Álex Palou rounds out the top ten on the grid. This is Palou’s worst starting position since he started 24th for the 2024 season finale at Nashville. Palou makes his 100th start this weekend. Six drivers have won in their 100th start, most recently Patricio O'Ward at Mid-Ohio last year. Palou enters this weekend on 74 career top ten finishes.
Kyle Kirkwood missed out on a top ten grid position by 0.0245 seconds, and Kirkwood has now not started in the top ten in ten consecutive races. He made up 11 spots last week to finish fourth at St. Petersburg, his first top five finish since he was fourth at Laguna Seca last June.
Sting Ray Robb has his career-best starting position in 12th, his first career top fifteen start. Robb has finished in the top fifteen only twice in his career on ovals, 15th in the first Iowa race in 2024 and ninth at Gateway later that season.
Marcus Armstrong is set to start 13th. Armstrong has seven top ten finishes in 13 oval starts. Last year, he started outside the top ten in eight races, and he finished in the top ten in five of those, and three of those were oval events.
Marcus Ericsson is starting 14th. Ericsson has finished worse than his starting position in his last five races. For the second consecutive season, Ericsson was sixth in the season opener. His average finish last season on ovals was 19.1667.
Scott Dixon ended up qualifying 15th. Dixon is coming off his worst finish ever in a season opener, a 23rd in St. Petersburg. He had not finished outside the top ten in the season opener since 2015. That season, he finished outside the top ten in the first two races. Dixon ended that season as champion.
Louis Foster starts on the outside of row eight. Foster had an average finish of 17.1667 on ovals last season. He did finish better than his starting position in four of six oval races last season. His best improvement was a gain of ten spots at Milwaukee from 27th to 17th.
Christian Lundgaard starts 17th. Last year, Lundgaard went from 17th to sixth at Milwaukee. He also went from 22nd to sixth in the second Iowa race last year. Lundgaard was third at St. Petersburg after starting 12th. It was his eighth podium finish since his only career victory at Toronto in 2023.
Christian Rasmussen makes row nine an all-Christian and an all-Danish row. This is the 30th time in 33 starts Rasmussen is starting outside the top ten. He had five top ten finishes in six oval starts last season. He was last place in the other, and it was the most recent oval race at Nashville.
Kyffin Simpson is going to start 19th. Simpson had started in the top ten of the previous two races. He has finished better than his starting position in his last five oval starts. Simpson was fourth in the last oval race at Nashville. Prior to that, his best oval finish was 13th.
Romain Grosjean rounds out the top twenty on the grid. He was 1.0982 seconds slower than Malukas’ pole position time. Grosjean has four top ten finishes on ovals with his best result being seventh in the first Iowa race in 2022. Dale Coyne Racing has never had a top ten finish at Phoenix. The team’s best result was 11th with Ed Jones in 2016.
Santino Ferrucci occupies 21st. This is the eighth consecutive race Ferrucci is starting outside the top ten. He did go from 21st to second last year at Detroit. A.J. Foyt Racing has only one victory at Phoenix Raceway. That was November 9, 1975 with Foyt himself. Foyt won four times at Phoenix, three times with Anstead-Thompson Racing.
Dennis Hauger completes row 11. In four oval races last year in Indy Lights, Hauger had three podium finishes and he finished in the top five of all them. He started on pole position for three of the races. Dale Coyne Racing had one top ten finish on an oval last year. That was seventh at Gateway with Rinus VeeKay.
Caio Collet will make his second career start from 23rd, one spot better than his first career start at St. Petersburg. In two seasons in Indy Lights, Collet had an average finish 7.625. He had three top five finishes last year in four oval races, and his best oval finish over his two season was third at Nashville in 2024 and at Gateway in 2025.
Felix Rosenqvist had an accident in the opening practice and was unable to make a qualifying run. Rosenqvist will start 24th The Swede did run at Phoenix in Indy Lights in 2016. He was 15th after starting 13th in a 16-car race, but he did finish on the lead lap. That is Indy Lights' most recent visit to the track. Rosenqvist is the only driver from that Indy Lights entered this weekend in IndyCar.
Will Power spun in turn two on his qualifying run, and Power will start 25th as the final two spots are set via entrants’ points due to neither Rosenqvist nor Power setting a qualifying time. Not including last year’s Indianapolis 500, when Power started 33rd after his Team Penske entry was found with an illegally modified attenuator ahead of the Fast 12 session, this is his worst starting position since the 2021 Indianapolis 500, when he started 31st after running the last row shootout. Power enters this weekend having finished outside the top twenty in the last three oval races and in four of the last five. His average finish on ovals last year was 19.5.
Fox's coverage of the Good Ranchers 250 from Phoenix Raceway begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:20 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 250 laps.
