Rosenqvist edges Palou for Portland IndyCar pole

Felix Rosenqvist’s return to front-running prominence continues in 2026, as the Long Beach pole-sitter and Indianapolis 500 winner added another pole to his personal accomplishments in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda with a lap of 58.483s.

“Phenomenal team effort,” Rosenqvist said. “Huge, huge thanks to Meyer Shank Racing on that. I think we started off a little bit behind yesterday and just didn't really do anything magical. Just tried to focus on execution and putting all the corners together.”

Rosenqvist beat Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou, who will start alongside him in the No. 10 Honda (58.501s), and Honda continued to flex its muscles with a lockout of the first and second rows with Andretti Global’s Will Power in third (58.513s) and Andretti’s Marcus Ericsson in fourth (58.673s).

“I had too much lunch today, man,” Palou said with a laugh while explaining the gap to Rosenqvist. “Man, it's so close. It hurts when it's that close, but yeah, happy for Felix, happy for Honda, 1-2 there. But yeah, man, it just hurts.”

Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Rinus VeeKay broke into the Honda armada with the No. 76 Chevy as he produced the best performance for the brand in fifth (58.770s). Ganassi’s Kyffin Simpson – impressive again – was sixth in the No. 8 Honda (59.084s).

“It's super satisfying,” Simpson said.

Qualifying was a miserable affair for Arrow McLaren, as Pato O’Ward simply lacked speed in 17th, while Christian Lundgaard had speed but lacked a functioning hybrid amid electrical problems that struck his car and left the most recent road course polesitter holding 25th and last for Sunday’s 110-lap race. Within the Arrow McLaren trio, Nolan Siegel was the best among them in 16th.

In the first stage of split-field knockout qualifying to send six drivers into the Firestone Fast 12, Will Power was fastest (58.360s) to lead the transferring Alex Palou, David Malukas, Marcus Ericsson, Romain Grosjean and Kyffin Simpson.

Disappointed and done for the day were Louis Foster (P13), Josef Newgarden (P15), Pato O'Ward (P17), Alexander Rossi (P19), Marcus Armstrong (P21), and Mick Schumacher (P23).

In the second stage of knockout qualifying to send six drivers into the Firestone Fast 12, Rosenqvist delivered a big lap to lead the group (58.424s) and had Scott Dixon, Kyle Kirkwood, Graham Rahal, VeeKay and Dennis Hauger in tow to complete the transfer group.

Finished for the afternoon were Scott McLaughlin (P14), Nolan Siegel (P16), Caio Collet (P18), Christian Rasmussen (P20), Santino Ferrucci (P22) Sting Ray Robb (P24), and a stunned Lundgaard (P25), who was on pole for the last road course race but dealt with an electrical issue that hampered his run.

The Fast 12 saw the usual ragged running and with just over one minute left, Dixon became the latest driver to smack the inside wall at Turn 1 and was unable to deliver a maximum attack lap after breaking his right-front wheel.

Moving onto the Fast Six were Rosenqvist (58.644s), VeeKay, Simpson, Ericsson, Palou and Power. That left the remaining running order to be set with Kirkwood (P7), Rahal (P8), Malukas (P9), Hauger (P10), Grosjean, who was livid to learn the team had not mounted an extra new set of Firestone alternate tires for use in the Fast 12 (P11) and Dixon (P12).

Warmup is up next on Sunday at 1:05pm ET

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