Scott McLaughlin Turns In ‘Bloody Good’ Qualifying Run at Grand Prix of St. Petersburg
· Yahoo Sports
Visit asg-reflektory.pl for more information.
Sun, fun, and being No. 1 are Scott McLaughlin’s takeaways from springtime at St. Petersburg, Florida.
With his third pole position in five years at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, McLaughlin gave Team Penske a strong chance to win on the downtown streets of the Gulf Coast city NTT IndyCar Series season-opener for the eighth time in 15 years.
McLaughlin, the 2022 winner from the No. 1 starting spot, took the 14-turn, 1.8-mile temporary course in 1:00.5426 with a best-lap speed of 107.032 mph in his No. 3 DEX Chevrolet.
“Raul [Prados], my new engineer, gave me a great car,” McLaughlin said. “But we have a lot of experience here, with a great car, as well. Just really pumped.
“Everybody knows the slog we went through last year, so to start on this note is fantastic,” he said, referring to a sour 2025 season that included the dismissal of three team executives after a rules violation during qualifying at the Indianapolis 500, an embarrassing pre-race crash there, and ultimately being shut out of victory lane for the first time since his rookie 2021 season.
Gavin Baker - Getty ImagesSo, after starting the weekend by topping the Friday practice leaderboard, he pronounced Saturday’s result as “bloody good, bloody good.
“We said to ourselves, if we had the pace to go for pole, we’re going to go for it. So we put tires on and went after it,” McLaughlin said. “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 warmth… and just great. Glad for everyone at DEX, as well. This is a home race for them, so it is an added bonus when this car is up front here.”
Andretti Global’s Marcus Ericsson, the 2023 winner here, will start next to McLaughlin on the front row when Sunday’s green flag drops at 12:29 ET before a live FOX audience.
Perhaps not so surprisingly, rookie Dennis Hauger was third among the Firestone Fast Six for Dale Coyne Racing. The Norwegian driver scored the pole position at this race in the Indy NXT feeder series last year and recorded a wire-to-wire victory for Andretti Global in his American open-wheel debut. Hauger topped reigning and four-time series champion Alex Palou, Saturday’s No. 4 qualifier.
Palou kicked off an eight-victory championship season with the triumph at St. Petersburg last year. If statistics mean anything, the winner of this event has come from the No. 4 starting slot five times.
McLaughlin’s new teammate, David Malukas, and a second Dale Coyne Racing driver, Romain Grosjean, will fill the fourth row.
Scott Dixon failed to crack the top 12 in qualifying.Gavin Baker - Getty ImagesAdvancing to the top 12 from the initial round of qualifying were, in Sunday’s starting order, Marcus Armstrong, Pato O’Ward, Louis Foster, Kyffin Simpson, Felix Rosenqvist, and Christian Lundgaard.
More startling was who didn’t make the top-12 cut. Among them were two-time winner Josef Newgarden (2019, 2020), of Team Penske, and his former teammate Will Power, the most decorated qualifier in the sport with 71 pole positions and nine of the past 17 on this course.
Also having troubles this weekend was longtime Chip Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon. He failed to transfer into the top 12 for the first time since 2013.
Scott Dixon still seeking his first St. Petersburg trophy
Six-time series champion Scott Dixon’s first task as he tries to tie legend A.J. Foyt for a seventh title is to capture an elusive St. Petersburg victory. This is the one race on the circuit at which he has not won—and it’s the one where he has made the most starts.
Sunday’s will be his 22nd. And it will be his record-extending 420th overall start and 357th straight, which marks the longest qualifying streak in IndyCar history. If Dixon is going to win the 100-lap (180-mile) event, he needs to break his pattern of runner-up finishes. He was second here last year for one of his five No. 2 performances.
Weekend’s second practice sees two hit wall
Saturday’s pre-qualifying practice set back a couple of teams.
Will Power, trying to shake brake locking issues from Friday’s opening practice, hit the turn-10 wall with his new No. 26 TWG AI Honda for Andretti Global. The two-time series champion, who in the offseason ended his 16-year run for Team Penske, was unhurt. However, the front of his car was significantly damaged.
Will Power.Gavin Baker - Getty Images“I just locked the fronts,” Power said. “I wasn’t braking late. We had a lot of (brake) locking issues yesterday, so we changed brakes. We were hoping to fix the issue.”
Later in Saturday’s practice, Christian Rasmussen, who later said he “just lost the rear in Turn 2,” Rasmussen was uninjured after his No. 21 ECR Splenda Stevia Chevrolet spun and nosed into the concrete barrier in Turn 2. His crew was left to repair moderate front-end damage.
During qualifying in the Indy NXT feeder series, Mateo Nannini also banged into the barriers and damaged his car from front to back and side to side to bring out a red flag but escaped injury. Before that, Enzo Fittipaldi, grandson of two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi, clipped the wall and will start last in the 24-car field.