Alex Palou has dominated qualifying for the Java House Grand Prix of Monterey at Laguna Seca. The championship leader was the fastest in every segment of qualifying and secured pole position with nearly three-tenths of a second advantage over direct rival Pato O’Ward, who qualified second.

Second Free Practice canceled due to low-hanging clouds

A second practice session was scheduled before qualifying, but due to low-hanging clouds, helicopters were unable to take off, forcing the session to be canceled. This was especially bad news for Alexander Rossi and Devlin DeFrancesco, who had crashed during the first practice and missed out on valuable track time.

While the first practice session was chaotic, that was not the case during qualifying. The session ran without any full course yellows and featured very few spins.

Strong first qualifying group becomes a battleground

This time, the qualifying groups were based on the results of the first practice session instead of the second, resulting in a much more competitive first group.

With such a strong first group, it was clear from the start that some big names would fail to advance to the Fast 12 session. Drivers like Scott McLaughlin, Marcus Ericsson, Rinus VeeKay and Scott Dixon were all quick enough to be in the top six in Group 2, but because Group 1 was so much faster, they were eliminated early. Alex Palou was fastest in the first group, ahead of Felix Rosenqvist, an impressive Christian Rasmussen, Christian Lundgaard, Colton Herta and Josef Newgarden.

While the entire top 7 in the first group clocked lap times under 1:09, Pato O’Ward was the only drive to manag that in the second group. Behind O’Ward, Marcus Armstrong, David Malukas, Will Power, Louis Foster and Graham Rahal also advanced to the final twelve. Despite the second group being less competitive, there was still one notable driver who was done early: Kyle Kirkwood only managed the ninth-fastest time and will start Sunday’s race from 18th.

Palou continues dominance in Fast 12

Palou continued his dominance in the second segment, going a tenth faster than his best time from the first. Rosenqvist and Herta both came within a tenth of Palou. On his next lap, Rosenqvist spun at high speed in Turn 5 but was able to continue through the gravel. This triggered a brief local yellow flag, which hindered Rasmussen, resulting in Rosenqvist’s fastest lap being deleted. As a result, the Meyer Shank Racing driver fell back to 12th place.

Behind Palou and Herta, O’Ward, Malukas, Newgarden and Power also advanced to the Firestone Fast 6. Palou had a bit of luck himself; he too went off-track and caused a brief local yellow. Since no other driver was affected, his fastest lap was not deleted.

Palou three tenths clear of the field

Before the start of the Firestone Fast 6, it was already clear that Newgarden and David Malukas weren’t true contenders for pole. Both had used two sets of soft tires in the first segment just to advance, meaning they had no fresh softs left for the final session.

Almost all drivers in this segment would complete only one serious qualifying lap. It became a showdown between O’Ward and Palou, with O’Ward setting his fastest lap of the day first. Palou was on his flying lap at that time and absolutely smashed O’Ward’s benchmark by going another three-tenths faster. Herta ended up two-tenths behind O’Ward, securing Palou his fifth pole position of the season.

Qualifying highlights

Full results of the qualifying session at Laguna Seca