Palou lays down another flyer to lead day one of Indy 500 qualifying

What a wild day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Cooler temperatures but higher winds ruled the opening day of qualifying for the great race, and in the first surprise of many, it wasn’t a Team Penske car on top of the scoring pylon; Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, as he’s done many times in 2025, was the fastest driver on the property with the No. 10 Honda, but only by the smallest of margins.

Palou (233.043mph) barely edged the No. 3 Penske Chevy of Scott McLaughlin (233.013mph) and Josef Newgarden’s No. 2 Penske Chevy (233.004mph) and the trio were separated by just 0.039mph after 12 laps and 30 combined miles of qualifying.

“Amazing day for us,” said Palou, the 2023 Indy polesitter. “Struggled a little bit in practice. We were not able to finish a full qualifying run. I mean, like everybody, it was tough conditions today. Glad that we got our balance right. We had a ton of speed in the car. It's been great the comeback we did from last year, I think. Looking forward to tomorrow.”

After the front row, the rest of the Fast 12 was filled by Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward (232.820mph), Ganassi’s Scott Dixon (232.659mph), and the most impressive efforts of the day belonged to PREMA Racing’s Robert Shwartzman who rocketed around the Speedway with an early run (232.584mph) that held for sixth.

On the back foot for most of the day, AJ Foyt Racing’s David Malukas delivered towards the end of the session by capturing seventh (232.546mph). Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist was eighth (232.449mph), Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Takuma Sato was ninth (232.415mph), and Penske’s Will Power was 10th (232.144mph). Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson was 11th (232.132mph) and Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard completed the 12 (231.809mph).

The Fast 12 was a testament to the quality of IndyCar’s paddock as eight of the 12 teams entered in the race were represented.

Another standout performance belonged to Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Conor Daly who didn’t want to settle for 21st and fired to 13th on the final run of Saturday, which led to a huge roar by the partisan Hoosier crowd.

A pair of massive crashes by Marcus Armstrong from Meyer Shank and Colton Herta from Andretti sent both teams into frantic rebuilds that saw both newly-built backup cars appear before the close of qualifying. Of the two, Herta was able to qualify 29th while Armstrong was unable to muster the speed to make it inside the top 30, which would have guaranteed a starting spot in the race.

It means Armstrong, along with Andretti’s Marco Andretti and both Dale Coyne Racing drivers – Rinus VeeKay and rookie Jacob Abel – will be the four drivers fighting to earn one of the three remaining positions left during Sunday’s Last Chance Qualifying session.

Drivers from Daly in 13th to Graham Rahal in 30th are done for the weekend with their positions locked in. After the LCQ is run, the Fast 12 will settle pole and the other 11 spots, and the arcane two-day time trial process will finally be over.

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Qualifying opened at 11 a.m. with Andretti’s Marcus Ericsson up first and he produced a standard of 232.132mph for Honda. O’Ward immediately reset the standard for Chevy with a 232.820mph average which stood for the first 90 minutes as others took shots.

Herta had a huge crash at 12:05 p.m. He’s OK but the car was done.

By 12:30 p.m. the closest was Dixon with a four-lap average of 232.659mph to claim second and the greatest surprise was the stellar run by Shwartzman who earned third with a 232.584mph performance. Rahal, miserable all week, didn’t see his mood lightened after running 228.686mph, slowest of the 18 qualifiers as of 12:45 p.m.

Bad news out of Gasoline Alley for Daly, whose post-run technical inspection found the front wing failed to meet the minimum height requirement and his run was voided.

Alex Palou made his statement at 1:05 p.m. with a run to P1 and an average of 233.043mph with 68F ambient and 106.9F track temperatures. Josef Newgarden, who waited for better conditions before making his run, was fast as expected and produced an average of 223.004mph.

Rossi was the first to go out for a second qualifying attempt at 2:16 p.m. and was slower. Daly recorded a 231.221mph that was good enough for P17. Will Power completed his second run at 3:07 p.m. and improved from P11 to P10 with a 232.144mph. Nolan Siegel tried to move up from P20 but went slower, and teammate Kyle Larson, down in P27, was next out at 3:14 p.m. He found some pace and improved to P16 with a 231.326mph.

Marcus Ericsson waved off his last lap at 3:17 p.m. while attempting to climb up from P11 but was slower.

Rahal pulled his speed and went for a second attempt at 3:30 p.m. and briefly held P21 but lost speed across the run and fell to P28. Sting Ray Robb didn’t like his P25 performance so he went out and jumped 10 spots forward to claim P15 at 3:35 p.m.

Rossi was out at 3:36 p.m. as the first driver to make a third run. His P14 was trending well in P5 after his first lap but fell to P12 on the second, P12 on the third and the fourth with an average of 231.701mph.

Castroneves ran again and leapt from P30 to P20 with a 230.978mph. Lundgaard was next and turned his P27 into P12 with a 231.809mph at 3:56 p.m.

Scott Dixon, who was P5, went out at 4:07 p.m. for a second run, but only completed one lap and waved off. Abel, who pulled his speed, went out at 4:11 p.m. to try and earn a safe starting spot. He ran P31 and waved off.

Big run from Devlin DeFrancesco from P26 to P16 at 4:18 p.m. with a 231.575mph. VeeKay, who pulled his speed, didn't find what was needed and ran P31 and last before waving off the attempt. Ed Carpenter upgraded from P19 to P15 at 4:45 p.m. with a 231.633mph.

Herta was back on track at 4:46 p.m., a remarkable achievement after going from being in the wall to back and running 4h41m later. He runs to P29 with a 230.192mph.

It’s 5:05 p.m. and Armstrong is on track and shaking down the car during a mock qualifying attempt. He runs 225mph before waving off. Rossi is out yet again and doesn’t improve; he’s still P19.

David Malukas sends his car to P7 at 5:23 p.m. in a big performance for the AJ Foyt Racing team, and the misery for Andretti continues as another run at 5:37 p.m. is waved off due to a lack of speed. VeeKay does the same at 5:41 p.m. – just 9m left in the session – and pulls off. Armstrong gets up to 229mph, but it’s not enough and he’s in at 5:45 p.m.

Daly’s in the fast lane to try and get into the Fast 12 from P21, and has Andretti rolling in behind him to make one last go at avoiding the Last Chance Qualifying session on Sunday. But the gun is fired at 5:50 p.m. as Daly’s halfway through his run, which leads to an eruption from the fans as he vaults to P13.

Rahal, on the LCQ bubble in P30, climbs from the car and exhales. He won’t be returning to the battle to make the field of 33 as he did last year.

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