Alex Palou Claims 3rd Consecutive Pole in Detroit

Alex Palou was fast during Saturday morning’s practice for the NTT IndyCar Series Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. Little changed once things moved into qualifying for Sunday’s race, as his fast time of 1:01.901 in the Firestone Fast 6 gave the Spainard his third pole position in a row.

Palou had to wait out the remainder of the session to see if his time would stand up as the fastest, but felt confident after climbing from the cockpit of his No. 10 machine.

“You never know, expecally with these Fast 6 rules,” Palou said. “I felt pretty good with my lap, I felt like there was not much more margin, so I just tried to put everything together. So happy to get that No. 10 Honda on the pole.”

He’ll be joined on the front for Sunday’s race on the streets of Detroit by Will Power following his Fast 6 time of 1:02.124. Scott McLaughlin and Scott Dixon will start third and fourth with the next row being filled out by Christian Lundgaard and Kyle Kirkwood.

Firestone Fast Six

The Fast Six session unfolded without incident as drivers made single-car attempts per IndyCar’s rule change for street-circuit qualifying.

Position	Driver	Number	Team	Time from Pole (seconds)
1.	Alex Palou	10	Chip Ganassi Racing	1:01.901
2.	Will Power	26	Andretti Global	+0.2232s
3.	Scott McLaughlin	3	Team Penske	+0.3310s
4.	Scott Dixon	9	Chip Ganassi Racing	+0.1526s
5.	Christian Lundgaard	7	Arrow McLaren	+0.1785s
6.	Kyle Kirkwood	27	Andretti Global	+0.2433s

Round 2

McLaughlin paced the field in the Fast 12 session on a time of 1:01.333. That time was ahead of that set by Power (1:01.355), Kirkwood (1:01.411), Palou (1:01.491), Lundgaard (1:01.501) and Dixon (1:01.547). Lundgaard’s time in the session’s final minute got him into one of the transfer spots at the expense of Arrow McLaren IndyCar teammate Pato O’Ward (1:01.597), who was seventh in the session. 

Position	Driver	Number	Team	Time from Advancing
7.	Pato O’Ward	5	Arrow McLaren	+0.0480s
8..	Marcus Armstrong	66	Meyer Shank Racing	+0.1487s
9.	Christian Rasmussen	21	Ed Carpenter Racing	+0.1636s
10.	Marcus Ericsson	28	Andretti Global	+0.2284s
11.	Louis Foster	45	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	+0.2854s
12	Graham Rahal	15	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	+0.4344s

Round 1, Group 1

Armstrong snagged the top time at the end of Group 1 qualifying, posting the fast time of 1:02.2309 as the session expired. O’Ward (1:02.2632), Dixon (1:02.3830), Lundgaard (1:02.3991),  Foster (1:02.6367), and Ericsson (1:02.7286) joined him from the first group in advancing to the Fast 12 with Nolan Siegel being one spot shy of advancing out.   

Mick Schumacher was the only incident of the session, crashing his Honda in the turns 6-7 chicane.

Position	Driver	Number	Team	Time from Advancing
13.	Nolan Siegel	6	Arrow McLaren	+0.0370s
15.	Dennis Hauger	19	Dale Coyne Racing	+0.4293s
17.	Kyffin Simpson	8	Chip Ganassi Racing	+0.9443s
19.	Caio Collet	4	AJ Foyt Enterprises	+0.9484s
21.	Josef Newgarden	2	Team Penske	+1.078s
23.	Mick Schumacher	47	Rahal Letterman Lanegan Racing	+5.0537s

Round 1, Group 2

David Malukas saw his session come to an abrupt ending as he slammed into one of the turn 7 barriers on his final lap as he was credited with the group’s 11th-quickest time. 

Position	Driver	Number	Team	Time from Advancing
14.	Alexander Rossi	20	Ed Carpenter Racing	+0.2601s
16.	Felix Rosenqivst	60	Meyer Shank Racing	+0.2850s
18.	Rinus VeeKay	76	Juncos Hollinger Racing	+0.3787s
20.	Romain Grosjean	18	Dale Coyne Racing	+0.1328s
22.	Santino Ferrucci	14	AJ Foyt Enterprises	+0.2251s
24.	Sting Ray Robb	77	Juncos Hollinger Racing	+0.6115s
25.	David Malukas	12	Team Penske	+2.4255s

2026 IndyCar Detroit Qualifying Results

The Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix gets underway on Sunday (May 31) at 12:30 p.m. ET on FOX.