Álex Palou took his first pole position of the season yesterday at Barber Motorsports Park, as Palou ran a 67.291-second lap in the final round of qualifying to take the first on the grid for the Children's of Alabama Indy Grand Prix. It is the Catalan's seventh pole position of his career. He has won four times from pole position and he has never finished worse than fourth when starting in the first position. After winning the first two races and finishing second at Long Beach, Palou is attempting to become the first driver with four consecutive podium finishes to open a season since Simon Pagenaud in 2016, who had two runner-up finishes and three victories in the first five races.
Scott McLaughlin seeks his third consecutive Barber victory from second starting position. McLaughlin was 0.1469 seconds off Palou's fastest lap. McLaughlin won here from fourth in 2023 and from first last year. Three of his seven carer victories have come from second on the grid. No driver has won three consecutive Barber races. McLaughlin is the fourth driver to attempt a third consecutive Barber victory. In the previous three attempts, the drivers finished fifth (Will Power in 2013), fifth (Ryan Hunter-Reay in 2015) and fourth (Josef Newgarden in 2019).
Colton Herta starts third as Herta came 0.1658 seconds short of pole position. This is Herta's best starting position at Barber Motorsports Park, his previous best was ninth, and it is his fourth consecutive race starting on one of the first two rows. Last year was the first time Herta had finished better than his starting position at Barber. In the previous two years, he had finished where he started after finishing worse than his starting position in his first two visits to Barber.
Will Power has his best starting position of the season in fourth. Power was 0.2698 seconds off pole position. Entering this weekend, Power had failed to make it out of the first round of qualifying in three consecutive road and street course races for the first time since 2022 when he had a four-race slump. Power is 11 starts removed since his most recent Barber victory. He has four consecutive top five finishes here.
Rinus VeeKay was the surprise of qualifying, ending up fifth on the grid, falling 0.6185 seconds off Palou. This is VeeKay's first top five starting position since he started second in the 2023 Indianapolis 500. This is his first top five start on a road or street course since his pole position at Barber in 2022. VeeKay has finished outside the top fifteen in the last two races. Prior to that, he had nine consecutive finishes inside the top fifteen.
Nolan Siegel has a career-best starting position of sixth. Siegel was 0.7552 seconds from pole position. This was his first time making the Fast Six. The American was also the top McLaren qualifier and he leads a train of three consecutive McLaren cars on the grid. The bad news for Siegel is six consecutive Barber races have been won from a top five starting position, and sixth has never produced a winner at Barber. Siegel was runner-up in both his Barber Motorsports Park starts in Indy Lights.
Christian Lundgaard leads an all-Arrow McLaren row four. The Dane was 0.0787 seconds from making the final round of qualifying. With third-place finishes in each of the last two races, this is the first time Lundgaard has had multiple podium finishes in a season. He has never had three consecutive top five finishes in his career. His only other time having consecutive top five finishes were in 2023 when he was fourth at Mid-Ohio and first at Toronto.
Despite hitting the barrier in Saturday morning practice and missing part of the session, Patricio O'Ward made the second round of qualifying and O'Ward rounds out the all-McLaren row four starting eighth. O'Ward fell 0.0893 seconds short of the Fast Six. In his last nine starts, O'Ward has a victory and two runner-up finishes, but the other six results have all been outside the top ten.
Josef Newgarden takes ninth on the grid. In his previous four trips to Barber, Newgarden started eighth, seventh, seventh and eighth. In all four of those races, Newgarden finished 14th or worse. Newgarden has finished outside the top ten in the fourth race of the season the last three years. In 2022 and 2023, those were 14th and 15th-place finishes at Barber. Last year, it was an 17th-place result in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis.
After scoring his best career finish of tenth in the most recent race at Long Beach, Kyffin Simpson picks his the best starting position of his career, as Simpson took tenth in qualifying. Not only did Simpson pick up his first career top ten finish in the most recent race, he also scored fastest lap, the second of his IndyCar career.
Marcus Armstrong had started in the top ten in the first three races of 2025, but he fell a spot short of making it four consecutive races as Armstrong ended up 11th in the second round of qualifying. He has altered finishes top ten finishes and finishes outside the top ten over his last four starts. Armstrong was 14th at Long Beach a few weeks ago.
For the second time this season, Louis Foster made the second round of qualifying and Foster will start 12th. Foster's finishing position has improved in each of his first three races. After being an innocent bystander in the opening lap accident at St. Petersburg and finishing last, Foster stepped forward into 24th at Thermal Club and he jumped up to 16th at Long Beach.
Santino Ferrucci has his best starting position of the season in 13th. Ferrucci was 0.0517 seconds off advancing to round two in qualifying. Ferrucci was seventh in last year's Barber race. It was the third time an A.J. Foyt Racing car has finished in the top ten at Barber. Sébastien Bourdais was fifth in 2021 and Mike Conway was seventh in 2012.
Felix Rosenqvist was 0.0155 seconds off making it out of round one in group two, and Rosenqvist will start 14th. He had started in the top ten in six consecutive races dating back to last season. This weekend marks the 100th start for Rosenqvist's IndyCar career. He comes the third Swede to reach 100 starts, joining Kenny Bräck and Marcus Ericsson, who hit the century mark at Long Beach last time out.
Alexander Rossi takes 15th on the grid as he was 0.1096 seconds off making the second round. Rossi had four consecutive top ten finishes at Barber before last year's race when an unsecured tire after a pit stop caused him to finish 25th. It has been 40 races since Rossi's most recent victory. The only time Rossi has won a race when starting outside the top ten was from 11th in the 100th Indianapolis 500, his first career victory nearly nine years ago.
Callum Ilott has his best qualifying effort of the season in 16th, only 0.0407 seconds from making it out of the first round. Ilott had yet to start better than 22nd this season. In his three full seasons in IndyCar, this is his worst start through three races with an average finish of 22nd. In 41 career starts, Ilott has only six top ten finishes.
Christian Rasmussen starts directly behind his Ed Carpenter Racing teammate Rossi in 17th. This is Rasmussen's best starting spot of the season after starting 19th and 18th in the previous two races. The Dane enters this weekend having not finished in the top ten in his last eight starts. His only top ten finish was ninth at Mid-Ohio last July.
Kyle Kirkwood has his worst starting position on a road/street course since the 2024 St. Petersburg race as Kirkwood will start 18th at Barber, matching that St. Petersburg grid spot. The Floridian was only 0.09211 seconds from making it to round two. He had started in the top ten in four consecutive races. Only three IndyCar races have been won from 18th starting position: Jim McElreath at Ontario in 1970, Bobby Unser at Michigan in 1979 and Marcus Ericsson at Nashville in 2021.
Conor Daly will start 19th. Daly has yet to start better than 15th this season. In five Barber starts, Daly has never finished better 16th. He has not had a top ten finish in his last 18 road/street course starts. That would be a fifth place finish in the 2022 Grand Prix of Indianapolis. He has finished on the lead lap of four consecutive Barber starts.
David Malukas makes its an all-American row ten as Malukas rounds out the top twenty. Twentieth is Malukas' worst grid position of the season. Of his ten career top ten finishes, only one came from a starting spot outside the top fifteen. He went from 23rd to eighth at Portland in 2023. Barber was the location of Malukas' first Indy Lights victory in 2021.
Graham Rahal finds himself in 21st, matching his worst starting position of the season and his worst starting position at Barber Motorsports Park. Since Rahal was runner-up in consecutive Barber races in 2015 and 2016, his best finish at the track has been seventh. It has been 23 races since Rahal's most recent top five result in IndyCar competition.
Sting Ray Robb makes it row 11 the second consecutive all-American row as Robb starts to Rahal's outside. Coming off a ninth-place finish at Long Beach, matching his career-best result, Robb is heading a one of his least fortunate tracks. He has finished 27th and 26th in two starts here, and on both occasions he has retired from the race.
After an accident in the Saturday morning practice Marcus Ericsson was only able to qualify 23rd. Ericsson had started in the top ten in the first three races of the season. Ericsson has had a top five finish in one of the first four races of the year in four of his first six seasons in IndyCar. The exceptions are 2019, his rookie season, and 2021. Ericsson's best finish in 2025 was sixth at St. Petersburg.
Robert Shwartzman takes the outside of row 12. This is Shwartzman's second consecutive race starting in 24th position. He has been the best Prema finisher in each of the last two races, and he only finished a spot behind his teammate Callum Ilott at the St. Petersburg season opener.
Jacob Abel starts outside the top twenty for the fourth time this season. The Kentucky-native rolls off from 25th. On debut at St. Petersburg he started 25th and finished 23rd. At Thermal, he dropped from 23rd to 25th. At Long Beach, Abel started and finished 26th. He has yet to finish on the lead lap in his career. Abel scored his first career Indy Lights victory last year at Barber Motorsports Park.
Scott Dixon went off course on his final lap of qualifying and that cost him a promising starting position. This means Dixon will start 26th. This is the fourth round of the season, and Scott Dixon has never won the fourth race of the season. His first victory at Nazareth in 2001 was scheduled as the fourth round of the CART season, but it was the third race to take place after the cancelled Texas event. Dixon won that Nazareth race from 23rd on the grid, the worst starting position Dixon has won from in his career.
Devlin DeFrancesco was the slowest in the second qualifying group, and DeFrancesco will start 27th on his return to Barber Motorsports Park. DeFrancesco has finished outside the top fifteen in 11 consecutive starts.
Fox's coverage of the Children's of Alabama Indy Grand Prix begins at 1:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 1:47 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 90 laps.
