NASHVILLE — For the second consecutive year, Scott McLaughlin will lead the field to green in Sunday’s Big Machine Music City Grand Prix (12 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network). He accomplished that feat by what he says was the best qualifying round that he’s ever done in his 47 NTT INDYCAR SERIES tries.

“A really satisfying qualifying session, probably the best of my INDYCAR career, to be honest,” he said after scoring his first pole in the last 14 starts.

His pole run was impressive. In a series that is typically decided by thousands of a second, McLaughlin’s time was 3-tenths quicker than second and over 6-tenths faster than third.

That gap though was shaped by a massive lap in the first round for which he only needed one lap to advance out.

“Really satisfying because it all started in Q1 for us,” he noted. “Pumped a decent lap out there. 6/10ths better than P2. We were able to do one lap on our greens. Bolted those on for Q3. I just had to make sure we got to the Fast Six, which we did. Every lap in quallie, nailed it pretty good.”

Now, he has the challenging aspect of trying to strategize this race with Ben Bretzman. Normally, starting on the pole sets you up for a potential race win. 3 of the 4 street races this season were won from the pole.

However, here is a completely different story.

The two races so far run on these city streets were messy ones. Out of the 160 combined race laps turned, 43% of them were under caution periods with 38% of the cars being loaded back on the haulers early after crashes.

The inaugural race saw 9 cautions for 33 laps. Last year’s was one less yellow (8) but more caution laps (36).

Most of those have come during pit sequences which have had the tendency to flip the field.

Which means Nashville is a race to where you need more luck over more speed to win. Both winners prove that. But you also can pass if you have a good car too though. 5 of the top 6 finishers last year rebounded from being outside the top 10 to finish there.

Qualifying hasn’t mattered here either.

Starting spots of Top 5 finishers in 2021: 18th, 2nd 10th, 14th, 13th

Starting spots of Top 5 finishers in 2022: 14th, 1st, 4th, 17th, 23rd

“I’m not really too sure. It seems like the fastest way to win this race is crash your car in the first lap, do six pit stops, then pit with six to go and stay out (smiling),” Colton Herta said on Friday.

McLaughlin was a casualty from the pole last year and was 15th on the final restart. He’d still come back to finish second in a photo finish at the line.

“The final stint there, we were 15th. Managed to lose by a nose,” McLaughlin continued. “There’s a lot went on. Our car was phenomenal. I feel like it’s just as good this year.

“Look, honestly, same car as what we ran last year. It’s just been unreal. The Chevy has been awesome. Been a lot of gains everywhere. I think we’ve made improvements.

“Overall just to come here with the same philosophy, just nail laps, it’s a good feeling, especially with the interruptions between sessions. I actually wanted it to rain. I was excited with the rain. The rain was a lot of fun this morning, had a blast. Learn a ton every time I’m in the rain.

“Nice to be fast in the wet and dry.

“I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. You can’t even plan really. Guy won last year doing six stops.

“You just got to play it on the run and try and do the best job, execute every lap that I can. Pit stops need to be good. Yeah, the reason we were back there last year was a bad pit stop. That was an unfortunate thing that doesn’t really happen on my car.

“Yeah, I’m super pumped for tomorrow to see what we got.”

The challenging part is, how do you plan?

“I just think you don’t,” he says. “See what our destiny holds. I think we’ll just play it as it goes.”

The thing is, their plan the last two race weekend’s have been to swing for the fences. Why change the approach now?

At Toronto, he was second but didn’t pit when he should have. It cost them four spots in the process. In Race 2 at Iowa, he was second at the time of pitting to go off sequence. It cost him three spots in the end.

That’s 20 points he’s given away (11 at Toronto, 9 in Iowa) by doing so. But, even if he didn’t, getting 20 more points back isn’t going to help his championship hopes. He’s 148 points down. He’d be 128 points if he had those decisions back. That would only moved him up 1 spot in the standings.

“Yeah, we’re at the point now where we you can risk a lot, whether that’s strategy and whatnot,” said McLaughlin.” Ultimately you don’t want to fall any further down in the championship standings.

“I think we’ve got to put pressure on Alex. We have to make sure he doesn’t get too far ahead. We know how crazy of a race Nashville is. Laguna is new because of the new pavement. I generally think it’s not over. We’re full steam ahead, just pushing.

“At the end of the day we have to put pressure on Alex as well. That comes from our team and how we work.”

Alex Palou starts fourth on Sunday and when starting in the 2nd row (4th Long Beach, 3rd GMR Grand Prix, 3rd Road America, 4th Mid-Ohio) the Spaniard has finished 5th, 1st, 1st, 1st respectively.

Does that mean McLaughlin could take an unorthodox approach to the 80 lap race that could become a wet race before we get to the checkered?

McLaughlin has six straight top eight finishes now and seven in the last nine races. The only exception was the Month of May to where he qualified 16th and 14th in the GMR Grand Prix and Indy 500 and finished in the same spots too.

Since, he’s qualified on the front row in 5 of the 7 races with finishes of 7th, 8th, 5th, 6th, 2nd, 5th. It’s just turning those starts to a win.

He was held up in Detroit with Romain Grosjean, he should have pit at the end of the race in Toronto, didn’t have enough for Newgarden in race 1 at Iowa and then swung for the fence on the Sunday race and it didn’t pan out.

He qualified on the pole and finished second here a year ago. He was fourth in the return trip to IMS on the road course. He was third in World Wide Technology Raceway, won in Portland and sixth in Laguna Seca.

If he can replicate that, watch out for another end of season surge.

It’s been that type of season but he still moved up to 5th in points (-148) in Iowa. He’s one point behind Marcus Ericsson for fourth and only 28 back from Scott Dixon for third.