McLaughlin surges to St. Petersburg IndyCar pole

Scott McLaughlin would not be denied. After going winless in 2025, the New Zealander went into the offseason with a renewed fire to re-establish himself as a championship contender, and with his pole position captured on Saturday at St. Petersburg, the Team Penske driver sent notice that he’s back.

McLaughlin also earned pole at last year’s St. Petersburg race, and he’ll have Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson – another driver who’s determined to reverse his recent fortunes – alongside in the No. 28 Honda.

McLaughlin’s No. 3 Chevy (1m00.5426s) pipped Ericsson (1m00.5621s) by a tiny amount, which suggests the two could be up for a proper tussle to take the lead into Turn 1 on Sunday. Behind them, the biggest story of the day was found with rookie Dennis Hauger from Dale Coyne Racing in the No. 19 Honda (1m00.5743s) who came within 0.0138s of taking pole in his debut IndyCar race.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou was fourth in the No. 10 Honda (1m00.6842) ahead of Penske’s David Malukas in the No. 12 Chevy (1m00.7638s) and the other member of Coyne’s amazing output with Romain Grosjean in sixth with the No. 18 Honda (1m01.3462s).

“We said to ourselves, if we had the pace to go for pole, we're going to go for it,” McLaughlin said. “So we put tires on and went after it. A couple of guys didn't, obviously, but, you know, best spot to start from. I love St. Pete. It's great to great to be back here in Florida I think everyone's enjoying the, the warmth and, yeah, just great.”

Tire conservation was indeed part of qualifying strategy for some teams who had to choose whether to bolt on another new set of Firestone’s faster alternate compounds or save that set for use in the race.

“It's going be a lot of different strategies,” McLaughlin added. “Everyone's trying to figure out the tire and stuff like that, you know? But we put ourselves in the front and hopefully we keep it.”

The rest of the Firestone Fast 12 was comprised of Meyer Shank Racing’s Marcus Armstrong in seventh, Arrow McLaren’s best in Pato O’Ward in eighth, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing upstart talent Louis Foster in ninth, and Ganassi’s Kyffin Simpson in 10th. Meyer Shank’s Felix Rosenqvist and Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard rounded out the dozen.

The three-round knockout qualifying process got under way with 12 of the 25 drivers fighting to be among the six fastest to transfer into the Firestone Fast 12.

Within the first qualifying group, some of IndyCar’s best street racers fell short in their first qualifying attempt of the year as Andretti’s Will Power (13th) and Kyle Kirkwood (15th) were well shy of their usual starting positions. They were trailed by AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci (17th), Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Rinus VeeKay (19th), RLL’s Mick Schumacher (21st) and Penske’s Josef Newgarden (23rd).

In the second qualifying group, there were fewer surprises among those who didn’t transfer as ECR’s Christian Rasmussen (14t), Ganassi’s Scott Dixon (16th), RLL’s Graham Rahal (18th), JHR’s Sting Ray Robb (20th), Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel (22nd), Foyt’s Caio Collet (24th), and ECR’s Alexander Rossi (25th) were finished for the day.

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