Scott McLaughlin has locked in the best possible starting position for the season opener on the streets of St. Petersburg. The Team Penske driver—who crashed on Friday—set the fastest time in the final minute of the Firestone Fast 6, finishing nearly two-tenths of a second ahead of Colton Herta, who secured second place. Rinus VeeKay pulled off a surprise by qualifying for the Fast 12 session and will start the race from twelfth position.

After Marcus Ericsson set the fastest time in the morning practice session, the field was split into two groups based on that session. Notably, the first qualifying group was particularly strong, featuring all three Penske and McLaren cars, both AJ Foyt Racing entries, and Colton Herta.

Scott McLaughlin posted the fastest time in the first qualifying group, ahead of Herta. However, there were immediate surprises: Nolan Siegel recorded the third-fastest time, while Rinus VeeKay shocked many by finishing sixth. This made him the first Dale Coyne Racing driver to achieve this feat since David Malukas did so at Mid-Ohio in 2023. VeeKay’s quick lap unexpectedly pushed Will Power out of the Fast 12, while the session proved disastrous for Pato O’Ward. The Mexican driver will have to start Sunday’s race from 23rd place.

In the second qualifying group, Alex Palou set the fastest time, ahead of his teammate Scott Dixon. There were no major surprises in the top six, but just outside of it, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing teammates Devlin DeFrancesco and Louis Foster stood out with seventh and eighth place finishes, respectively. The biggest issues in this session were for Alexander Rossi, who lost valuable time after experiencing instability on his alternate tires during his fast lap in Turn 1. The former Indy 500 winner will start the race in 20th place.

Colton Herta was the fastest driver in the second qualifying segment, ahead of Christian Lundgaard. The eventual polesitter, Scott McLaughlin, barely managed to qualify for the Firestone Fast Six with the sixth-fastest time, while reigning champion Alex Palou got stuck in eighth place. The surprises from the first segment, Siegel and VeeKay, were unable to match their earlier lap times and ended up in 11th and 12th place, respectively.

With drivers having an extra set of alternate soft tires this year, all Fast Six participants had one fresh set of soft tires available. This meant they could only complete one fast lap before the tires lost performance. Lundgaard was the first to set a quick time, but he was soon overtaken by Felix Rosenqvist. In the final seconds of the session, Herta briefly jumped to the top of the leaderboard before McLaughlin went even faster, securing the first pole position of the season.

Notably, there were no incidents during the qualifying session, aside from several drivers lightly brushing the wall while exiting corners.

The Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg will start on Sunday at 12:29 PM Eastern Time.

Full results of the qualifying session at St. Petersburg