The question this weekend after Pato O’Ward‘s victory was if Alex Palou could respond going into WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The Surgeon answered the call on Saturday (July 26) with a dominant time in qualifying over his championship rival.
The driver of the No. 10 DHL Honda set a lap time of 1:08.3413 seconds to claim his fifth pole of the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season and 11th of his career, adding to the seven-time winner’s list of superlatives in his dominant season.
This was Palou’s second consecutive pole at Laguna Seca, which resulted in his second victory at the track last year.
“It’s been an awesome weekend, awesome year,” Palou said. “The car was really good already in practice one. We didn’t really know what was going to happen today, just didn’t know what the track conditions were going to be. We made some changes in the car. We trusted that they were going to be in the right direction. Super happy we got to fight for pole. We got the pole and we’re starting on the best spot tomorrow.”
O’Ward fell by 0.2867 seconds to the Spaniard but managed his best ever starting position at the track and as close as he can get to matching the near-perfection of Palou.
“It’s my best start here,” O’Ward said. “So, I’ll take that. Alex just had a really, really strong lap. My qualifying was a bit more scrappy really, especially from Q2 to Q3. I found four-tenths but needed to be closer. We’ll take that tomorrow.”
Firestone Fast 6
Colton Herta represented the best time out of the three Andretti Global Hondas and the only one to make it out of the first round of qualifying. He starts third with Josef Newgarden alongside him in row two. Newgarden’s managed his best qualifying result on a non-oval this season.
Will Power also represented Team Penske as the only team with multiple drivers in the Firestone Fast 6, starting fifth with the Chevrolet-allied AJ Foyt Enterprises No. 4 of David Malukas in sixth.
“It was a good session for us,” Power told Frontstretch. “We made a lot of changes last night, and we feel like we’re in a good spot for the race. [Palou]’s on another level. We got a lot of work to do to beat him, but we’re capable of a podium.”
| Position | Driver | Number | Team | Time from Pole |
| 1 | Alex Palou | 10 | Chip Ganassi Racing | 1:08.3413 |
| 2 | Pato O’Ward | 5 | Arrow McLaren | +0.2867 |
| 3 | Colton Herta | 26 | Andretti Global | +0.5411 |
| 4 | Josef Newgarden | 2 | Team Penske | +1.3282 |
| 5 | Will Power | 12 | Team Penske | +1.6649 |
| 6 | David Malukas | 4 | AJ Foyt Enterprises | +1.8398 |
Round 2
Felix Rosenqvist was second in round two, but he spun out in turn five, causing a local yellow while Christian Rasmussen was on his flying lap, causing the Swede’s time to be deleted.
“We were fast all qualy,” Rosenqvist said to FOX Sports 1. “P2 in the first group, and we were sitting P2 there. It’s annoying when you have the lap time, and it goes away. It seems like whenever there’s penalties to be handed out, we’re there to take them, and you can run someone off the track, and that’s fine. It’s my bad, and we’ll have to go forward tomorrow.”
This benefited Team Penske’s Power, a strike of luck for the team who were able to get both Power and Newgarden into the Fast Six.
| Position | Driver | Number | Team | Time from Advancing |
| 7 | Christian Lundgaard | 7 | Arrow McLaren | +0.0202 |
| 8 | Graham Rahal | 15 | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | +0.0729 |
| 9 | Louis Foster | 45 | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | +0.0862 |
| 10 | Marcus Armstrong | 66 | Meyer Shank Racing | +0.1064 |
| 11 | Christian Rasmussen | 21 | Ed Carpenter Racing | +0.5317 |
| 12 | Felix Rosenqvist | 60 | Meyer Shank Racing | +0.6187 |
Round 1 Group 1
Scott McLaughlin elected to go soft-soft for his only qualifying session of the day, but Rasmussen put together an electric lap to bump the driver of the Team Penske No. 3 Chevrolet out of the first round.
Marcus Ericsson cited not having the time to practice this morning as the reason he could not find the pace out of the first round. He rolls off 15th tomorrow.
Scott Dixon, the 2023 winner at Laguna Seca, was another surprise exit from Round 1 of Group 1’s qualifying session.
| Position | Driver | Number | Team | Time from Advancing |
| 13 | Scott McLaughlin | 3 | Team Penske | +0.1101 |
| 15 | Marcus Ericsson | 28 | Andretti Global | +0.2164 |
| 17 | Rinus VeeKay | 18 | Dale Coyne Racing | +0.324 |
| 19 | Scott Dixon | 9 | Chip Ganassi Racing | +0.385 |
| 21 | Jacob Abel | 51 | Dale Coyne Racing | +0.514 |
| 23 | Conor Daly | 76 | Juncos Hollinger Racing | +0.5706 |
| 25 | Robert Shwartzman | 83 | PREMA Racing | +0.6832 |
Round 1 Group 2
Kyle Kirkwood got loose in The Corkscrew section of the course coming to complete his hot lap but lost grip out of the trickiest section of the track to give away time and take him out of contention for Round 2. The Andretti driver also mentioned traffic affecting his lap time.
“The last lap wasn’t great,” Kirkwood said. “We were aiming for lap two, and I was just stuck in traffic there. It wasn’t a great gap there. Everybody was backing up. Not sure what everybody else was doing, probably a lap 3. For us, we needed to do a lap 2 and never got a feel for the car and came to the last corner and had a pretty substantial snap and fighting the car to keep it on track.”
Santino Ferrucci returned from a hand injury from last weekend’s race on the streets of Toronto. The AJ Foyt driver was capable of qualifying 20th in the session.
Devlin DeFrancesco went for a spin that kept him from posting a flying lap. He will start last of the 27.
| Position | Driver | Number | Team | Time from Advancing |
| 14 | Kyffin Simpson | 8 | Chip Ganassi Racing | +0.0405 |
| 16 | Nolan Siegel | 6 | Arrow McLaren | +0.0784 |
| 18 | Kyle Kirkwood | 27 | Andretti Global | +0.1124 |
| 20 | Santino Ferrucci | 14 | AJ Foyt Enterprises | +0.1912 |
| 22 | Alexander Rossi | 20 | Ed Carpenter Racing | +0.2037 |
| 24 | Callum Ilott | 90 | PREMA Racing | +0.300 |
| 26 | Sting Ray Robb | 77 | Juncos Hollinger Racing | +0.7758 |
| 27 | Devlin DeFrancesco | 30 | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | +6.5536 |
Java House Grand Prix of Monterey Starting Lineup
The green flag will wave at Laguna Seca on Sunday, July 27 at 3 p.m. ET with broadcasting provided by FOX.
Wyatt Watson has followed motorsports closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretch as a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt is one of Frontstretch's primary IndyCar correspondents, providing exclusive video content on site. He hosts Frontstretch's Through the Gears podcast and occasionally The Pit Straight.You can find Wyatt's written work in columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monsteras well as exclusive IndyCar features. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media team, posting unique and engaging content for Frontstretch.
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