By David Morgan, Associate Editor
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The momentum keeps rolling for the Scott McLaughlin and his No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet after the New Zealander streaked to the pole for Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
McLaughlin has found a knack for going fast in the season opener, winning a pole in three of the last five seasons, with his lap of 1 minute, 0.5426 seconds being enough to earn him the top spot in time trials.
“Maybe I need to move to Florida. I don’t know what it is. I love this place. Great way to start our year,” McLaughlin joked.
The sixth-year Penske hotshoe also won the pole in 2022 and a season ago in 2025, but cautioned against getting too far ahead of himself based on a pole run.
“We did this last year, and I proceeded to have the worst year of my life,” said McLaughlin. “I’m just focused on execution tomorrow and the rest of the season. This is one little step.
“Just really proud of the execution because I felt like we nearly actually missed Q1. We were right on the buffer there, and the car was terrible. It was nice to tune it up and get it right and then it become one of my favorite cars I’ve had around here.
“It’s a testament to Raul and the camaraderie that we’ve built already and the understanding for each other, and that can only grow from here.”
McLaughlin went a step further and noted that no matter the outcome on Sunday, he will remain guarded over the first few races of the season to get a true gauge on where Penske is in 2026.
“I’m skeptical to go, yeah, we’ve found — I think for me, it’s going to be waiting until Long Beach. Long Beach was our worst street circuit, I thought personally and I think as a team and probably the biggest gap we had to the Andrettis and maybe the Hondas in some ways,” he said.
“This is nice, but we know we’re fast here. It’s just a matter of executing — sorry I keep using that word but you’re going to get used to it. Yeah, I’m not counting my chickens before they hatch. It’s okay right now.”
He will be joined on the front row by the No. 28 Andretti Global Honda of Marcus Ericsson, who looks to kick off his comeback season on the right foot following a career worst 20th place points result a year ago.
“It was extremely important for me. I’ve been really pissed off last year with my performance, and that’s not the way I want to show, and I know I can do so much better,” said Ericsson.
“This winter it’s been a lot about digging deep, working extremely hard on all areas, and just feels really, really good to come out and show that today, show what I can do and run up front. It’s only qualifying. We need to do it again tomorrow, but it feels really, really good.”
Reigning Indy NXT champion and rookie sensation Dennis Hauger starts third in his Dale Coyne Racing Honda, followed by Alex Palou, David Malukas, and Romain Grosjean to round out the Fast Six and give DCR two cars in the first three rows for Sunday’s race.
“I wasn’t really expecting that to be honest,” said Hauger. “I mean, we were a bit on the back foot in practice, but we just kept on going and man, it was super nice in qualifying. We got some experience on the red tires and we were super quick.
“Good start. Still got a day tomorrow, so we’ll keep working, but definitely more than I could have hoped for.”
Marcus Armstrong just missed out on the Fast Six, with the remainder of the top-10 going to Pato O’Ward, Louis Foster, and Kyffin Simpson.
After crashes in practice on Saturday morning, Will Power and Christian Rasmussen will start 13th and 14th, respectively. Scott Dixon starts 16th after crashing in practice on Friday.
Two-time St. Petersburg winner Josef Newgarden will have his work cut out for him on Sunday, rolling off from 23rd place after getting eliminated in the first round of qualifying.
“Not ideal. We just, we had a lot of traffic when we came out. We didn’t want to hold anybody up. Honestly, I think that’s what bit us was the sequencing was all off,” said Newgarden. “Felt good on blacks. We’ve been struggling with braking all weekend and I felt like we got on top of that finally.
“So, the car was really good. Unfortunate to just not put something together there. This Astemo team will fight tomorrow.”
With the field now set, drivers and teams will have one final warmup session on Sunday morning at 9:00 am ET on FOX Sports 1, leading into the main event at Noon ET on FOX.
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