SALINAS, Calif — In his final start with Arrow McLaren Racing, Felix Rosenqvist sent his team a parting gift on Saturday – a pole. The Swedish driver qualified his No. 6 Dallara-Chevrolet with the top starting spot by going 1:06.6416-seconds to score his 5th career pole, two of which coming this season.
“This is our last race together tomorrow, so what a way to get that going,” Rosenqvist said. “Especially here, track position is super important. We couldn’t have given ourselves a better opportunity.
“I think it just, I mean, in a way it’s ironic. It’s just kind of proving the pace we have, we keep having. Things haven’t been straightforward. We haven’t been good enough this year. I made a lot of mistakes. The team made a lot of mistakes. We had some unfortunate things happening.
“I think the number one thing as a driver you want to keep showing is your pace. Obviously Portland was a very good weekend for us. To kick off this weekend like this is just perfect.
“As I say, it’s the last weekend with the team, so a bit emotional obviously. I love all these guys and girls in Arrow McLaren, NTT DATA. Even with other teams, I’ve been working with them.
“Yeah, it’s definitely a perfect way to end things.”
It seems as if when the pressure is off, he’s delivering.
Rosenqvist came home runner-up last week in Portland and now starts on the pole in his 79th career start.
“Well, I think, like most of us, we don’t like to admit that we’re struggling or being under pressure,” Rosenqvist said. “Obviously I’ve been in the situation for quite a long time where I don’t really know what my future’s going to hold. I always kind of played it off like, It’s fine, I got it under control.
“I think somewhere a couple months ago, I started having some bad results. We had a lot of DNF’s and stuff. Kind of things out of my control. You get to a point where you have to settle something for next year. It’s obviously stressful. I think that actually got to me a bit.
“Having signed a contract multi-year, I couldn’t really believe how free I would feel after that, so… It’s kind of a good reminder for the future when you feel stressed out, you kind of have to take care of those things firsthand, make sure you’re nice and relaxed at the track.
“In a way, like always, it’s always so close. I feel like I could be sitting here being pissed from not transferring in Q1. We got the pole. Honestly, the difference is a couple hundredths. I’m not saying that we’re just smashing it every time we’re out there. We still have to work so hard for it.
“I think those things matter, as well. With Billy and I, like, leaving, we are just having fun, relaxed. We’re confident. Also with the setup changes and stuff, I feel like we started believing on our own stuff a little bit more end of the year. Nice to see it pay off.”
In his first 18 starts with McLaren, Rosenqvist had just two top 10 finishes and an average finishing spot of 16.33. Over the last 29 races, he has 18 top 10 finishes with an average finish of 12.48.
He has a great shot at a win on Sunday to snap his 60-race winless drought.
4 of the last 5 Laguna Seca winners came from the front row with three of which coming from the pole. 21 of the last 24 visits at that were won from a top 3 starter (15 from the pole, 4 from 2nd).
Rosenqvist has 2 top 5’s in 3 tries here including 4th last year.
He’ll be joined on the front row from Scott McLaughlin. This was the second straight week that he’s qualified 2nd.
McLaughlin was only .0330-seconds from a pole last week and .0097-seconds this time around. Each time he felt like he left a little something on the table.
“I dropped a wheel at (Turn) 10, the fast right-hander, just trying to get that extra little bit,” McLaughlin said. “The car was mega. I really feel bad for these guys on the XPEL Chevy. Congrats to Felix. It’s pretty awesome he got his last pole with the team there.”
This season, he’s started in the top six 10 times including 8 on the front row. 7 of his last 8 races have been on the front row at that.
McLaughlin’s finishes from the front row have been 7th (Detroit), 6th (Toronto), 2nd and 5th (Iowa doubleheader), 2nd (Nashville), 5th (Gateway – 10 spot grid penalty), 9th (Portland). Can he pick up the win and end his 13 race winless streak?
Ironically enough, his win this season didn’t come from the front row. It came from 4th in Barber.
On a weekend that has been dominated by Honda’s, Chevy locked out the front row and has 3 of the top 4 starters and 5 of the top 8 at that.
Christian Lundgaard (1:06.7478-seconds), Josef Newgarden (1:06.7937-seconds), Scott Dixon (1:07.0171-seconds) and Alex Palou (1:07.2846-seconds) rounded out the Fast Six in a record setting day.
Scott Dixon topped Helio Castroneves’ 23-year-old record of 1:07.722-seconds set on Sept. 8, 2000 with a lap of 1:07.0002-seconds in Round 1. Christian Lundgaard then topped that lap at 1:06.4610-seconds in the second round.
Remarkaby Clean Session
This has been a rough weekend in terms of carnage. 21 red flags were thrown between the 5-hour test session on Thursday and that pair of practice sessions to follow. With drivers pushing the newly paved track to the absolute limit in qualifying, most felt like this could be a messy one.
However, it was fairly clean.
There were only three incidents in total, two of which in the opening round. The first for Ryan Hunter-Reay spinning in Grup 1 and Helio Castroneves in Group 2. Pato O’Ward had a moment in the final seconds of the second round while the Fast Six was clean from green to checkered.
Unknown Session
Due to all of this weekend’s carnage, everyone was sort of left guessing heading into qualifying. Only the Firestone primary tires were permitted to be used for Thursday’s 5-hour test as well as Saturday morning’s 60-minute session too. Friday was the time to test out the faster alternate tires.
That was a messy session with 5 red flags. With most teams not slapping on the alternate tires until late and just 13 of the final 32 minutes of practice being under green flag conditions, including the longest green flag run being 5 minutes, no one really had a good read on the red tires heading into qualifying.
“Oh, man, this track is something else,” pole sitter Felix Rosenqvist said. “I think it’s been the topic of the weekend, just the grip out there, the anti-grip off the line. It’s hard to put one together. Haven’t really had a single lap, to be honest, until in qualifying. Practice was just kind of a mess, as you saw. A bit of a question mark. I felt like we were still kind of testing in qualifying. Yeah, just kept getting better and better for every run.”
It’s why heavy hitters that were quick this weekend, Colton Herta (18th, 1st, 6th), Kyle Kirkwood (9th, 5th, 5th), Alexander Rossi (6th, 3rd, 4th) and Marcus Ericsson (5th, 4th, 10th) were all out in Round 1.
Power Doesn’t Make Fast 6 As Only Penske Not In Final Round
Will Power has a record setting 70 INDYCAR poles. Wildly enough, his 2023 season saw his only poles come on a short oval (Iowa). Power won this pole last year and was the only Penske driver not to make the Fast Six on Saturday as he was P9 in qualifying. That’s his worst starting spot in 4 tries here.
53 of his 70 poles have come on road and street courses, however, 6 of his last 8 have been on short ovals (Gateway, Iowa).
On natural road courses this season, he’s qualified 11th (Barber), 12th, 17th (Indy), 22nd (Road America), 7th (Mid-Ohio), 7th (Portland) and now 9th (Laguna Seca).
Castroneves’ Record Broken, He Qualifies Last
What a rough day it was for Helio Castroneves. On a day that his 23-year-old track record fell, Castroneves spun early on in the opening round of group 2 and as a result, will start last (27th) on Sunday.
Talk about a wild set of circumstances. Also, this likely will be his final road and street course race as well. With him scaling back to part-time only in 2024, all signs point to him moonlighting in INDYCAR from here on out being for the Indy 500 only.
Herta Out In Round 1 – Tough Day For Andretti
It was another tough day for Andretti Autosport. Most thought that they’d have something for Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing this weekend. Both Penske and Ganassi have combined to have won all 6 races on natural road courses this season and just went 1-2-3 here a year ago.
However, Andretti is always strong here, most notably Colton Herta. Instead, 3 of their 4 cars and if you count their alliance team in Meyer Shank Racing, 5 of the combined 6 were eliminated in the opening round of qualifying.
Herta had led all but 11 laps in his 2 wins here in 2019 and 2021. Both came from the pole at that. However, he only qualified 18th last season and despite being quickest in practice on Friday, qualified only 15th a day later.
Kyle Kirkwood has been good here too in the Road to Indy. He was only 18th. Devlin DeFrancesco was 26th.
For Kirkwood, he averaged a starting spot of 8.8 in the first 10 races. Over the last 7, it has fallen to 15.0. He’s qualified 18th, 17th, 8th, 15th, 13th, 16th, 18th in that span.
Romain Grosjean was 10th and eliminated in the second round.
For MSR, Tom Blomqvist (21st) and Helio Castroneves (27th) also had a dismal day.
Starting Lineup
Row 1: Felix Rosenqvist, Scott McLaughlin
Row 2: Christian Lundgaard, Josef Newgarden
Row 3: Scott Dixon, Alex Palou
Row 4: Rinus VeeKay, Will Power
Row 5: Romain Grosjean, Pato O’Ward
Row 6: Graham Rahal, Colton Herta
Row 7: Juri Vips R, Marcus Armstrong R
Row 8: Alexander Rossi, Kyle Kirkwood
Row 9: Santino Ferrucci, Marcus Ericsson
Row 10: Agustin Canapino R, Callum Ilott
Row 11: Tom Blomqvist R, David Malukas
Row 12: Benjamin Pedersen R, Sting Ray Robb R
Row 13: Ryan Hunter-Reay, Devlin DeFrancesco
Row 14: Helio Castroneves
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