McLaughlin scores first IndyCar pole in St Petersburg

Scott McLaughlin earned his first career IndyCar pole position on the streets of Saint Petersburg, Florida during the first qualifying session of the 2022 season.

The three-time Australian Supercars champion found the speed on his final lap to oust his Penske team mate Will Power from the top spot in the Fast Six stage of qualifying, setting a lap time of 59.482 seconds to secure his maiden IndyCar pole.

McLaughlin had only managed a best qualifying result of fifth place throughout his first full season in IndyCar last year.

Power, who starts second, set a new course record at 59.347, during the second stage of qualifying.

Defending St. Petersburg race winner Colton Herta will line up third on the grid for Sunday’s 100-lap opening race, next to Rinus VeeKay in fourth.

Following an awkward collision with Takuma Sato in Saturday morning’s practice, Romain Grosjean recovered to qualify fifth, next to his compatriot, Simon Pagenaud, who was sixth in his first qualifying for Meyer Shank Racing.

Ganassi missed out on the Fast Six entirely: Scott Dixon was seventh, Marcus Ericsson was eighth, and reigning series champion Alex Palou was tenth.

Palou had been involved in a single car crash at turn nine in practice, as was Jack Harvey, who fell down to 23rd in his first qualifying for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

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Completing the top ten was the third Penske driver, Josef Newgarden, who will start ninth.

Indy Lights champion Kyle Kirkwood was the sole rookie contender to make the second phase of qualifying, and qualified 12th for his first IndyCar race. Christian Lundgaard was 15th, Devlin DeFrancesco was 18th, and Callum Ilott was 19th. David Malukas was moved down to 24th after impeding Jimmie Johnson during Group 2 of the first round, one position ahead of Tatiana Calderon in 25th.

Both McLaren SP cars failed to break out of the first phase of qualifying: Pato O’Ward couldn’t improve from 16th after making contact with the barriers at turn nine, while Felix Rosenqvist was down in 21st.

Reigning Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves will begin his first full-time campaign in five years from 17th on the grid.

Qualifying results:

Position	Car	Driver	Team	Engine
1	3	Scott McLaughlin	Penske	Chevrolet
2	12	Will Power	Penske	Chevrolet
3	26	Colton Herta	Andretti	Honda
4	21	Rinus VeeKay	Carpenter	Chevrolet
5	28	Romain Grosjean	Andretti	Honda
6	60	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank	Honda
7	9	Scott Dixon	Ganassi	Honda
8	8	Marcus Ericsson	Ganassi	Honda
9	2	Josef Newgarden	Penske	Chevrolet
10	10	Alex Palou	Ganassi	Honda
11	15	Graham Rahal	RLL	Honda
12	14	Kyle Kirkwood	Foyt	Chevrolet
13	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti	Honda
14	4	Dalton Kellett	Foyt	Chevrolet
15	30	Christian Lundgaard	RLL	Honda
16	5	Pato O’Ward	McLaren SP	Chevrolet
17	06	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank	Honda
18	29	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Steinbrenner	Honda
19	77	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger	Chevrolet
20	20	Conor Daly	Carpenter	Chevrolet
21	7	Felix Rosenqvist	McLaren SP	Chevrolet
22	51	Takuma Sato	Coyne/RWR	Honda
23	45	Jack Harvey	RLL	Honda
24	18	David Malukas	Coyne/HMD	Honda
25	11	Tatiana Calderon	Foyt	Chevrolet
26	48	Jimmie Johnson	Ganassi	Honda

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