Scott McLaughlin led the first practice for the Grand prix of Alabama this afternoon, narrowly edging points leader Kyle Kirkwood by 0.0288 seconds.
“Pretty good start for us on the Odyssey Battery Chevy,” McLaughlin said. “We were all strong, which is a good sign for the team. We’ve done a lot of hard work in the offseason to figure out where we can be better. We’ve still got a lot to learn and be better and stronger.
“Overall, a pretty good start for us. Bring on tomorrow.”
The top five included two Team Penske cars, two entries from Arrow McLaren, and one from Andretti. Alex Palou was the fastest Ganassi car in seventh.
Alexander Rossi caused a red flag when a fueling issue caused him to pull off to the side of the track and stop.
Practice 2 is at 11 am Eastern, and qualifying begins at 2:30 pm Eastern. Both sessions are on FS1.
Scott McLaughlin continued the fast pace he has shown all weekend and captured the pole for tomorrow’s Firestone Grand of St. Petersburg, but the buzz is all about rookie Dennis Hauger and the performance of Dale Coyne Racing.
Rookie Hauger, the 2025 IndyNXT champion who won several poles last year, will start third tomorrow in his first IndyCar race. His teammate Romain Grosjean will star sixth. Hauger is on loan to Coyne from Andretti Global, who has formed a technical alliance with Coyne. Grosjean officially got the second Coyne ride just 10 days ago.
McLaughlin led Friday’s practice and was seventh overall this morning. The pole was McLaughlin’s third at St. Pete, and he has one win. In 2025 a tire strategy call cost him the race.
Marcus Ericsson will start second, two hundredths of a second behind McLaughlin. Both front row starters have won this race, and both are coming off less than ideal seasons. Tomorrow’s race could be one of redemption for someone.
2025 St. Pete winner and series champion Alex Palou will start fourth.
David Malukas had a nice debut with Team Penske earning the fifth spot on the grid.
Newgarden’s Woes Continue
Josef Ne4wgarden hoped his win at Nashville in the 2025 season finale would provide a boost to the start of 2026. Yesterday he had an incident in practice, and he failed tom get out of the first round when his brakes locked upon his final lap. I look for him to move uo through the field tomorrow.
Scott McLaughlin has always been fast at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, and today was no exception. McLaughlin turned the fastest lap in the opening practice session during a Friday practice which had several red flags.
In the first small group session, Josef Newgarden got loose,slid through the grass, and made slight wall contact. In the biggest incident of the day, Scott Dixon had a major head hit in turn 8. David Malukas tried toed to squeeze between the wall and Dixon’s disabled car. Malukas ran over some large pieces of debris.
Late in group 2 Louis Foster hit the wall in turn 14. Dennis Hauger lost a spring and also brought out a red flag.
In a press availability after practice, Newgarden said that tires are still an unknown factor, but he believes the red alternate might be the better tire this weekend. A warmer sunnier Sunday may change that thinking. Newgarden said no one knows how the Firestone tires will perform with the rubber from the truck race on the track for qualifying.
Results
Notes
The St. Pete Grand Prix does very little wrong, but one thing needs to be addressed. The Victory Circle behind the main grandstand has not added a new winner’s plaque since Colton Herta affixed his sign in 2022 for his 2021 win.
While Herta’s name completed the front side of the pillar, the other side has holes predrilled for subsequent winners, yet it stands barren.
Through 2022, the previous year’s winner attaching the plaque with his name on it to the wall was a part of the weekend schedule. It hasn’t been done for the last few years. Imagine IMS not attaching the winner to te the Borg Warner trophy. I hope Green Savoree restores this tradition soon.
Friday saw one of the largest Friday crowds I have ever seen at St. Pete. On my way to the the turn 10 grandstand for IndyCar practice, the stand looked completely full- for practice; on a Friday. It makesme think tomorrow and Sunday are going to be jam packed.
Thanks for following along today. I’ll be back in the morning with a preview of qualifying.
Another large crash early in this morning’s practice eliminated Scott McLaughlin’s chances for a second consecutive pole position. On his fourth lap McLaughlin spun in turn 2, hit the wall and got airborne but did not turn over. The impact tore the keft rear tire from the car and gouged a hole in the track. McLaughlin was released from the infield care center. The team is building a new car and will not participate today’s qualifying. McLaughlin will start 12th in the Indianapolis 500 next Sunday.
McLaughlin had just turned a lap at 233,557 which stood as the vest of the session. Scott Dixon was the only other driver above 233 mph. Only 10 of the 12 cars turned laps. Marcus Ericsson and Robert Shwartzman did not appear.
In the hour allotted to the cars vying for the last row, Marcus Armstrong was quickest with a lap of 229.776. Jacob Abel was slowest at 227.796.
It took no time at all for drivers to reach 230 miles per hour as IndyCar allowed qualifying boost for the first time in an IMS practice session. Two crashes 11 minutes apart interrupted the otherwise clean running time.
Just past the halfway mark of the two and one half hour session Kyle Larson made contact with the wall in turn 1, then e slid to the inside of track. The damage looked slight, and Larson was cleared by the medical staff.
Practice resumed, but only for a moment before Takuma Sato made hard contact in turn 1, slid into turn 2 and hit the wall again. Sato had turned the second fastest lap of the day and was atop the no tow chart at the time of his accident. The car looks like a total loss.
Sato mwas treaqted and released from the infield care center.
Scott McLaughlin had the fastest single lap at 232.686. 12 drivers topped 230 mph.
Kyle Kirkwood had the best four lap average and the second best no tow speed behind Sato.
If this were Fast Friday, the pattern heading into qualifying would look familiar- Penske Chevys vs. the Honda teams. Andretti and Ganassi cars look to be near equal in speed. The pole could be one heck of a battle.
Scott McLaughlin bounced back from a crash in Friday’s practice to take his second pole at St. Petersburg. The Penske driver edged Colton Herta by 0.1769 seconds. McLaughlin has now won 11 IndyCar poles.
It was a very interesting qualifying under cloudy skies as the temperature cooled significantly. Favorites Pato O’Ward and Will Power were eliminated in the first rounds. Power had suffered a hybrid failure in the morning practice.
The Fast 12 had several surprise entries, among them Rinus VeeKay, Nolan Siegel, and both Shank cars of Felix Rosenqvist and Marcus Armstrong. Meyer Shank was the only team to have multiple representatives in the Fast Six.
Santino Ferrucci brushed the wall at the end of the front stretch in round 1. He brought the car to a stop on the escape road at turn 1 and it remained there until qualifying ended. Scott Dixon spun in turn one but kept the car off the wall and continued.
McLaughlin and Herta both said that the race will be interesting because of tire strategy.
Fast Six Results
Fan Fun
FOX isn’t fooling around with their promos. Two kiosks on the Mahaffey lawn bring to life exc erpts from the Newgarden and O’Ward commercials.
This from a faux magazine stand. The books are blank.
Indycar- Just when you think you know how things will turn out, they turn out differently.
A chaotic beginning set the tone for another entertaining race. The started was waved off, and polesitter Josef Newgarden’s day ended when he was punted by Marcu Armstrong into the front stretch wall.
Before that happened, what looked like a very short day for Alex Palou and a loss of the championship lead turned out with him losing just 10 more points to Will Power. Power spun on a restart and went down a lap. he recovered to 10th at the end, but attrition allowed Palou to finish 19th.
After a disjointed first half, the race settled into a game of pit strategy. It appeared Herta had the upper hand until Sting Ray Robb’s wall contact with 21 laps to go allowed the leaders to take fresh tires. McLaughlin
The waved off start because the back of the field was not in line caused chaos at the front. Some drivers slowed, and others accelerated. I have seen the green flag waved with worse formations than how the field lined up today. It would help if Race control stopped allowing the last half of the field to lag so far behind on the pace laps. Perhaps the grid should start out in rows of two, then have a tire scrub lap, and reform.
Today’s race had 816 passes, more than yesterday. Given the good racing we saw at Milwaukee this weekend, and what we watched at Gateway, I think the hybrid wasn’t the issue at Iowa. It may have been the track.
Kyle McInnes photo
Movers
Scott Dixon finished second from 17th.
Colton Herta finished third after starting 18th. He nearly won the race.
Marcus Ericsson went rom 16th to 5th, and Kyke Kirkwood finished eighth from 19th oin the grid.
Overall, Mikwaukee had a successful return to its Indycar roots. The attendance was great both days. There may have been a few more fans here today. The racing was very good.
I will stop here since I need to hit the road. Thanks for following along this weekend. I will have a complete Milwaukee wrap up tomorrow.
Scott McLaughlin will be on the point for the start of this afternoon’s first Milwaukee 250, while teammate Josef Newgarden will move to 11th after taking a nine place grid penalty.
Tomorrow, Newgarden has the pole and McLaughlin starts second, as Team Penske continues their oval domination in the 2024 season.
Race 1 Qualifying Results:
The 11 mile an hour speed separation between McLaughlin and last place Pietro Fittipaldi means that the leaders will encounter lapped traffic very early in the race.
David Malukas will move up to the front row for the start this afternoon.
Sunset is at &:27 pm Central time. Barring a long red flag or a race with lots of yellows, the race should easily finish before sundown. Ifr not, Indycar may declare a timed race.
Remember, kids, today’s race is exclusively on Peacock at 5 pm Central.
Race 2 Results
As of now there are no penalties assessed for Race 2, so this should be tomorrow’s starting lineup.
Notes
I talked to a couple of peoples in a Dunkin Donuts this morning who are in town for the race. They are originally from Indy but now live in Texas. They flew to Milwaukee for the race.
I drove to the track a little before 10 and there was a line toget in.
I heard that garage passes are sold out.
Thanks to Dale Coyne Racing for providing me workspace this weekend.
Milwaukee’s schedule has accomplished something oval tracks have had difficulty with. There is minimal downtime once cars get on track. Indycar follows Indy NXT after a brief transition, and the action is virtually nonstop. The only change I would make is to have Sunday’s race start an hour earlier.
The Pit Window by Mike Silver 