By David Morgan, Associate Editor
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – What a difference a day makes.
After a crash in practice 24 hours ago, Scott McLaughlin paid his team back for the night of work to get his No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet ready for Saturday, winning the pole for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg with a lap of 59.4624 seconds around the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street circuit.
“The DEX Imaging Chevy was fast, we call it the Printer Wagon, we love it. It’s a fast printer,” McLaughlin said. “The guys and girls on this team are rock stars. I had to repay them. Made a silly mistake there and was glad to come back with them.
“I just wanted to get pole the first race of the year. Good vibes. You know, it’s just great vibes. Immaculate vibes, we like to say. Very excited. Great spot to start. We’ll do what we can in the race and see how we go. Really proud of everyone at Team Chevy. Everyone at Team Penske in the offseason.
“It’s hard to keep doing this, being fast. There’s a ton of respect and competitiveness up and down the pit lane and to keep doing this is amazing.”
Scott McLaughlin wins the pole for Sunday's Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on FOX! #INDYCAR pic.twitter.com/a88Si0k43f
— INDYCAR on FOX (@IndyCarOnFOX) March 1, 2025
Colton Herta came close to keeping up the Andretti dominance of the weekend, clocking in second fastest, followed by the Meyer Shank Racing duo of Felix Rosenqvist and Marcus Armstrong in third and fourth, respectively, as the team enters its first year in a technical alliance with Chip Ganassi Racing.
“Great qualifying result,” said Rosenqvist. “We’ll take it. Don’t know if I could have got the pole. I was on on my second lap, but I accidentally hit the pit limiter. I’ll have to take a look at what happened. The car just kind of died. But it’s a really cool day for Meyer Shank Racing, we’re P3, P4.
“We’ve got Shinedown on my car this weekend. One of my favorite bands when I grew up, so that’s pretty cool, as well. Hell of a start to the season.”
Armstrong added that he thought he could have gotten more out of his Honda, but will settle for a second row start alongside his teammate on Sunday in his debut with Meyer Shank.
“Frankly, there was more available on that occasion, but I’m happy to be inside the top-six in my first race this weekend in the No. 66 SiriusXM car,” said Armstrong. “I did have a bit of a shifting issue down here before [Turn] 1 and then I slapped the wall exit of the last corner and my energy deployment stopped working.
“I left a little bit on the table, but it’s OK. We can fight from there.”
Christian Lundgaard, in his first year with Arrow McLaren, will roll off fifth on Sunday, with six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon rounding out the Fast Six.
Former Champions Just Miss Fast Six
After leading second practice earlier in the day, Marcus Ericsson fell just short of making the final round and will start in seventh-place. Three-time and defending series champion Alex Palou starts eighth, with Kyle Kirkwood, who topped opening practice on Friday, in ninth.
“Just a bit frustrating,” said Palou. “We had the fast car since practice 1, also Q1. We just couldn’t pull all the pieces together in the Fast 12. Just got a little bit of traffic here and there and couldn’t advance. Frustrating, but a good thing that we have a fast car. The No. 10 DHL Honda is fast, we just need to get everything together in the race.
“Looking forward to tomorrow.”
Josef Newgarden, who dominated this race a year ago, only to have it revoked due to a penalty weeks later stemming from issues with the Push to Pass System, will start from the tail end of the top-10 on Sunday.
“It was really getting that first lap on the green sidewalls,” Newgarden said of what made the difference in advancing vs not.
“That’s been the key this weekend, which we’ve noticed right off the bat. I’m bummed. We’ve got such a good car. This PPG car has been fast from the word go…
“We’ve got to focus on tomorrow now. 10th is not great, but it’s not terrible. We’ve got a good starting spot. The car is really good, just want to have a clean race. Of course, I want to be up front and I want us to win the thing – that’s my ultimate dream for tomorrow – but we need to get points on the board. We need to have a good clean day. I think if we can do that, we’ll leave here pretty happy.”
‘You Can’t Leave Anything on the Table in This Series’
Some other heavy hitters will start further down the grid, including eight-time St. Petersburg pole winner Will Power in his No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet, who came agonizingly close to being able to put down a lap fast enough to move on to the next round and position himself higher on the starting grid.
After slamming his HANS device down in his pit box after being unable to transfer on, Power explained that the inability to get his Firestones up to proper temperature during his run was the major factor in not being able to put up a fast enough lap.
https://twitter.com/IndyCar/status/1895926854827327727
“The beginning of the lap, because you don’t have enough temp in the front tire,” Power said of the key point in the lap that was his downfall. “I should have slowed the middle a bit more. Just carried a bit too much in the middle and pushed out to the wall and had to lift. That was easily enough time to get through. I missed out by less than a half-tenth.
“Man, you can’t leave anything on the table in this series. But it’s going to be an interesting race, actually. These [green] tires, maybe there is a good strategy play from there. Maybe it’s a good thing and we win from there, so we’ll see.”
Defending race winner, Pato O’Ward, will have his work cut out for him on Sunday, starting way back in 23rd place, echoing much of what Power said regarding the tires being the limiting factor for him as well.
“I just couldn’t get the green tires switched on,” said O’Ward.
“We had two opportunities… I don’t have an explanation for you, really. It was just a really tough lap to get together. Obviously, it’s not ideal for tomorrow, but we’ll have our work cut out for us. We’ll see if we can wing our way and get some solid points tomorrow.”
Drivers and teams will have a short 25-minute warm-up session on Sunday morning at 9:00 am ET before heading into the main event at Noon. Practice will be televised on FOX Sports 2, with the 100-lap season opener scheduled for a 12:29 pm ET green flag on FOX.
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