By the narrowest of margins, Alex Palou won the right to lead the field to green for the first race of the NTT IndyCar Series’ hybrid engine era.
Palou earned his second consecutive pole position, turning a lap of 1 minute, 5.3511 seconds at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and nipping Pato O’Ward by 0.0024 seconds.
“It was huge,” Palou told NBC Sports’ Georgia Henneberry. “The car has been awesome and is going to look good on the front row. It was nice two weeks ago (at Laguna Seca), and we wanted to repeat. We were as ready as we could be for the first pole of the hybrid era, and I’m pretty happy about that.”
TIRE DESIGNATIONS: Which compounds drivers will use to start the race
QUALIFYING RESULTS: Click here for Mid-Ohio qualifying speeds | Round 1, Group 1 | Round 1, Group 2 | Round 2 l Round 3
It’s the sixth career pole for Palou, who has won this season at Laguna Seca and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course after qualifying first in his No. 10 Dallara-Honda.
O’Ward just missed capturing his first pole since starting first two years ago at Mid-Ohio, but the Arrow McLaren driver will start on the front row in his No. 5 Dallara-Chevrolet for the first time this season.
“There’s always more,” O’Ward told NBC Sports’ Charlie Kimball. “That was a really clean lap, though. I thought we had it. The car has been really, really strong from the start. It’s the stongest car we’ve had all year in a race weekend, so I’m really excited for (Sunday). We’re obviously the ones chasing. It’s always a good thing to have a carrot in front of you, we’ll see if we can get it. I miss being at the front, man.”
David Malukas qualified third in his second start for Meyer Shank Racing. Malukas missed the first seven races this season with a broken right wrist that led to his firing by Arrow McLaren.
“It’s incredible,” Malukas told Henneberry. “This team, the chemistry and everything they’ve set up for me. They’ve given me the environment to really reach my max potential here, and everything that’s happened this year has all just added to this.
“Going to Laguna there was a lot of overthinking, a lot of thoughts. How’s the hand going to do? New team, new everything. As soon as we (finished 12th at) Laguna, I’m like, ‘Man, I think this is going to be really good. The hand has built up enough strength, I was able to wear it in at Laguna and now it’s all ready to go. This team, I knew going into it from all the work we did on the sim, I knew was very, very quick. I knew we had the potential to do it.
“I feel incredible here. It’s a big team effort. The team did a really good job. I just turned left and right.”
Colton Herta qualified fourth, and Marcus Armstrong and Marcus Ericsson also reached the final round of qualifying.
Here’s the IndyCar starting lineup (includes grid penalties for Marcus Armstrong, Felix Rosenqvist and Christian Fittipaldi) based off qualifying results for Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Presented by the 2025 Civic Hybrid at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on a 13-turn 2.258-mile road course in Lexington, Ohio (qualifying position, driver, car number in parentheses, engine, time and speed):
ROW 1
1. (10) Alex Palou, Honda, 1 minute, 5.3511 seconds (124.387 mph)
2. (5) Pato O’Ward, Chevrolet, 1:05.3535 (124.382)
ROW 2
3. (66) David Malukas, Honda, 1:05.6509 (123.819)
4. (26) Colton Herta, Honda, 1:05.7653 (123.603)
ROW 3
5. (28) Marcus Ericsson, Honda, 1:05.9592 (123.240)
6. (3) Scott McLaughlin, Chevrolet, 1:05.6178 (123.881)
ROW 4
7. (7) Alexander Rossi, Chevrolet, 1:05.6427 (123.834)
8. (20) Christian Rasmussen, Chevrolet, 1:05.6911 (123.743)
ROW 5
9. (45) Christian Lundgaard, Honda, 1:05.7705 (123.593)
10. (8) Linus Lundqvist, Honda, 1:05.7805 (123.575)
ROW 6
11. (11) Marcus Armstrong, Honda, 1:05.9402 (123.275)
12. (77) Romain Grosjean, Chevrolet, 1:05.7822 (123.571)
ROW 7
13. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 1:05.8562 (123.433)
14. (27) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 1:05.7147 (123.698)
ROW 8
15. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 1:05.9654 (123.228)
16. (27) Kyle Kirkwood, Honda, 1:05.7147 (123.698)
ROW 9
17. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 1:05.9857 (123.190)
18. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 1:05.8508 (123.443)
ROW 10
19. (60) Felix Rosenqvist, Honda, 1:05.6921 (123.741)
20. (21) Rinus VeeKay, Chevrolet, 1:06.0252 (123.117)
ROW 11
21. (14) Santino Ferrucci, Chevrolet, 01:05.9414 (123.273)
22. (78) Agustin Canapino, Chevrolet, 01:06.0550 (123.061)
ROW 12
23. (4) Kyffin Simpson, Honda, 01:06.1034 (122.971)
24. (51) Toby Sowery, Honda, 01:08.2499 (119.103)
ROW 13
25. (41) Sting Ray Robb, Chevrolet, 01:06.6894 (121.890)
26. (18) Jack Harvey, Honda, 01:06.9614 (121.395)
ROW 14
27. (30) Pietro Fittipaldi, Honda, 01:06.0973 (122.982)