On the streets of St Petersburg on Saturday, we enjoyed a great battle for pole between Team Penske’s Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden and Felix Rosenqvist, who moved to Meyer Shank Racing from Arrow McLaren in the off season.
Rosenqvist set a new track record in Q2 on his fresh alternate tires, having also set the pace in opening practice on Friday. But he fell 0.0058s short of a sixth career pole.
Instead, it was Newgarden’s 17th pole – his last coming at Detroit in 2022. Penske’s qualifying form of late on road and street courses has been wanting, apart from Scott McLaughlin’s pole at Nashville last season.
It is the closest front row for an IndyCar street race since June 2012 at Detroit's Belle Isle track, when Scott Dixon edged Will Power by 0.0044s. Also not bad when you consider (as then) that it’s two different engine manufacturers powering them (Newgarden with Chevrolet, Rosenqvist with Honda).
Perhaps tellingly, Newgarden starts 13 spots higher than where he qualified here last year. Romain Grosjean’s pole time of 59.5532s for Andretti Autosport in 2023 just shades Newgarden’s 59.5714s of 2024, even though this year’s car is lighter due to some modified components, including the aeroscreen, and some resurfacing work at Turn 3.
Rosenqvist starts six places higher than where he qualified for McLaren last season, while his former team-mate Pato O’Ward – who looked set for pole until a big slide at Turn 10 – matching his 2023 position of third.
Andretti Global’s Colton Herta is down two spots on 2023 here, but you can explain that one away by him opting for primary tires in Q3.
“We thought our call to do the Firestone Fast Six on primary tires was right, but it’s tough to say,” he shrugged. “We were struggling a little bit on [alternates] compared to most people, so we wanted to do something a little bit different to give ourselves a shot.
“I don’t know where we would have ended up had we done [it] differently.”
Grosjean is down four spots on his 2023 pole position, but he was mighty pleased with his performance given minnows Juncos Hollinger Racing, who snatched him up after his fractious Andretti exit, could only manage 21st and 22nd here last year.
“It is very satisfying,” he beamed. “This year I was hoping we could get into the Fast Six but I wasn’t exactly sure about it.
“It’s a very good qualifying, everything has clicked, and it’s clear where the improvement needs to be made and we’ll try.”
Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson is down two positions on his fourth with Chip Ganassi Racing, from where he went on to win the 2023 season opener.
The biggest mover is Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus Veekay, up a mighty 17 spots on his performance last year.
“We missed it by such a small margin,” he said of transferring to the Fast Six. “There’s always twelve-thousands more in there, but it was a good run and I’m pretty happy with it.”
The other members of the Penske trio were pretty similar to their 2023 form, with Power up two places and McLaughlin down three.
Marcus Armstrong was the best performing Ganassi driver in 10th, up three spots on his starting position last year, and he believed there was more to come: “It’s going to take me a few moments to get over that average qualifying lap,” he rued of his Q2 time.
But with Dixon 11th and champion Alex Palou 13th – despite recording very similar times to what they managed last year – it reflects an even tighter field spread than 2023. With its rookies Linus Lundqvist 19th and Kyffin Simpson 23rd, it’s quite a drop from CGR’s fourth, seventh, ninth and 13th last year.
Andretti’s Kyle Kirkwood was the big loser, however, 13 spots down on his fifth of last year – when he crashed out of Q3 and started fifth.
This time he (and his team) misjudged when the alternate tires would be at their best in Q1, so he pushed a lap too late. He’d also shunted in FP2 at Turn 2, to further dent his confidence.
