LEXINGTON, Ohio — In his second NTT IndyCar Series race weekend for Meyer Shank Racing, David Malukas has posted his career-best qualifying result with a third place effort ahead of Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
The Chicago native went around the 13-turn, 2.258-mile road course at a time of 1:05.6059 to average 123.819 mph in the No. 66 Honda. Malukas’ best lap was almost almost three-tenths of a second slower than polesitter Alex Palou.
“I don’t know if we would’ve been able to do Palou’s time, but maybe a little another tenth here or there [was possible],” Malukas told Frontstretch. “But coming from last year and the previous years on how tough it’s been for me anytime I’ve made it into the Fast Six, this has been by far the best it’s been and it all comes from the team, all the data, and obviously from all the drivers as well.
Malukas set the second fastest time in his qualifying group in the first round of qualifying to advance to round two. In the second round, Malukas was fourth fastest, enabling him to move on to the Firestone Fast Six.
“I knew that the car was really good, and from all the data that we’ve had … even between the runs, I was able to change my driving and use Felix [Rosenqvist]‘s data and just get that much better and make sure that we could put it all together,” Malukas said. “So going from run to run, I knew that the confidence was high (and) as soon as we did that first run and we were like P2, I was like, ‘Ah man,’ we just need to keep it clean, keep doing this over and over again and we’ll get there.”
Malukas has qualified no worse than 12th in his last two IndyCar races at Mid-Ohio, finishing sixth in 2023 when he drove for Dale Coyne Racing. Meyer Shank Racing is based in nearby Pataskala, just over an hour south of Mid-Ohio and this race is of upmost importance for the team.
“It all adds to it, I mean half the job is done,” Malukas continued. “We still have the race coming up, so that’s going to be the big boy. But yeah, it feels really good from the team side, they’re giving me a lot of support. So the best thing I want to do is just give good results for them.”
Team co-owner and four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves was proud of Malukas and the effort his teammate Rosenqvist also put in to qualify 13th.
“This is the second time and already on the second row of such a challenging place, plus we now have the hybrid which is a lot more as well,” Castroneves said. “Super happy. Everyone is thrilled, so now let’s execute tomorrow.”
This is Malukas’ second IndyCar race of the 2024 season after an injury to his right hand and wrist sidelined him through the first half of the season. Arrow McLaren released Malukas from his contract after he was not able to race for the first four race weekends of the season and Meyer Shank Racing announced in June that Malukas would race for the team starting at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
About the author
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.
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