CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
FIRESTONE GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSBURG
STREETS OF ST. PETERSBURG
ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING REPORT
MARCH 1, 2025
SCOTT MCLAUGHLIN CAPTURES CHEVROLET’S 10TH POLE FOR AT ST. PETERSBURG SINCE 2012
- Scott McLaughlin, driver of the No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet, captured Team Chevy’s 10th NTT P1 Pole Award on the Streets of St. Petersburg in the 2.2-liter twin turbo V6 era since 2012.
- McLaughlin captured his first pole in 2022 on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street circuit, with today’s fastest position being his second-career NTT INDYCAR SERIES pole on the course.
- McLaughlin, along with Christian Lundgaard, driver of the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, represented Team Chevy in the Firestone Fast Six.
- Sunday sees race day for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, starting with a warmup session at 9 a.m. ET on FS2, followed by the 100-lap, 180-mile main event live at 12 p.m. ET on FOX. Additional coverage throughout the weekend can be found via INDYCAR Radio and SiriusXM Channel 218.
Firestone Fast Six Qualifying Results:
1st Scott McLaughlin
5th Christian Lundgaard
Second Practice Top-10 Results:
4th Nolan Siegel
5th Conor Daly
6th Christian Lundgaard
7th Sting Ray Robb
8th Pato O’Ward
10th David Malukas
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING
David Malukas, No. 4 AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet:
“Looking at qualifying from a positive standpoint, we did a really good job making the car where it needed to be for qualifying. I think that’s something very hard to do. Looking at it from a team perspective and chemistry, we’ve done a very good job connecting and figuring out what I need from the team and what we need from the car. The car was very strong. Now the things to take away, I did a really bad job from my side. I think that was one of the worst laps I’ve done. I think I just asked too much out of myself to not do any laps on the alternates and kind of just guessed going into qualifying there. It’s the first race of the season so a lot to take from it, and it’s not over yet. We have a race tomorrow so we’ll work on it then.”
Santino Ferrucci, No. 14 AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet:
“Honestly, I’m really proud of our engineering team to give me a car that was capable today. It was just unfortunate circumstances, but I got into the wall a little bit coming on the frontstretch and going down the front straight the car got stuck in sixth gear starting what would have been my fast lap. The lap before was really good but it was in my head that was my banker lap so it just shows we have pace and we’ll just see what we can do tomorrow.”
Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet:
“I just couldn’t get the Firestone Alternates switched on. We had two opportunities, and I don’t have an explanation really. It was just a really tough lap to get together, and it is obviously not ideal for tomorrow. We’ll have our work cut out for us, but I think we can make our way forward and score some solid points tomorrow.”
Nolan Siegel, No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet:
“It was a positive day. We transferred, and that was our goal. I really wanted to be in the Firestone Fast 6 and make that happen. The conditions changed a little bit, and I didn’t quite execute on that last lap in Q2. But I think for the first time with this new group on the No. 6 NTT DATA crew, everything went really well and we’re happy with the result. This puts us in a good spot for tomorrow. We’re making progress as a team and we’ll continue to build from this. It’s a super strong start for 2025.”
Christian Lundgaard, No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet:
“I’m really proud of the crew, and proud to put the No. 7 VELO Arrow McLaren Chevrolet up front. Starting this season like this is really what I was trying to manifest in the offseason. I was telling everybody that I didn’t really want to show up and work my way through. I wanted to start strong, and I feel like we did that. We probably surprised a few people today, but at the end of the day, the points are scored tomorrow. That’s where we need to be strong and I feel like we have a really good car. The first one is always tough as the track and the grip improves a lot throughout the race.”
Christian Rasmussen, No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet:
“It was not a great run for us today. We were pretty hopeful after yesterday, we had great pace on the black Firehawks. We are struggling to figure out the green tires a bit and definitely have some work to do for tomorrow!”
Alexander Rossi, No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet:
“I am pretty disappointed. The No. 20 Java House Chevrolet was in a pretty good spot, we did everything right from a set-up standpoint. Unfortunately, I made a small mistake on our first set of tires in Turn 10 which cost us a bit of time. There is a little bit of an unknown as to what happened on the second set, but we will look into it. The car is good, but we have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
Conor Daly, No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet:
“Overall, I think it was a decent day for us but qualifying is… You have to nail everything and I think we just missed a little bit on the ideal pressures for the one-lap magic. That was obviously where all of the time was. We just happened to miss is by a little bit but a lot of other people did as well. You see the field a bit jumbled, but when cars like Pato (O’Ward) and (Alexander) Rossi are kind of near the 20’s where we are, you know that everyone has had a bit of a challenge today. So, I’m actually quite confident about tomorrow. I think we’ve had a great car on the long run. I think our car has treated us very well. Not too worried about it, but it’s a little bit harder on us from the beginning.”
On finishing Practice 2 fifth and how he’s feeling about qualifying…
“It’s an interesting weekend so far. You kind of see the field jumbled up a little bit. It’s actually really nice to have these rules to where we can run that extra set of greens. I think that, especially for someone like me who didn’t really get to run this last year on the road and street courses. It’s tough, man. One lap, one lap. Yesterday, it was a couple of laps, but I think we realized there was more there if you try to get the peak out of it in just one lap but that means you have to be perfect. You can’t make any mistakes. You have to get everything out of it. It’s a tough one, man.”
Sting Ray Robb, No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet:
Qualifying day was a bit frustrating. I thought we had some more room to go there based off our Practice 2 times, but conditions changed a little but and the race is going to be very exciting. The difference between the primaries and alternates, I think, that’s the headline of the weekend. We’ll see how that goes. Whether it’ll be a two-stop or a three-stop, that’s still to come. I’m hoping that we get it figured out for the race tomorrow. I think that we have a decent package to run in the race long stints in. We’ll see how it goes but everything else seems pretty good.”
On finishing Practice 2 in seventh with the softer tire:
“It’s pretty incredible. The jump from the blacks to the greens is unbelievable. I think it’s the biggest gap we’ve had in INDYCAR from primary to alternate sets. After three laps, it feels like a stick of butter that’s smeared on a piece of bread. It just disintegrates the tire. It’ll be interesting to see what it’s like in qualifying. I think that everyone’s going to be very tight like they are now, but it’s really, really hard to get the maximum amount of just that one lap tire. So we’ll see what it’s like, and hopefully we’ll keep moving forward. I know not everyone ran the green in that session, but I’m feeling good. I think we got it compromised one way or the other. Kind of got to pick a tire to be good on, so hopefully we picked the right one.”
Robert Shwartzman, No. 83 PREMA Racing Chevrolet:
“Overall I don’t think it was a bad qualifying because of all the issues we had in free practice. We barely got any laps in, so we maximized everything we could. I also had my first experience of how the qualifying works here. Also, these tires are something new, something different to what I am used to, so it is really something to have to learn because the whole group level is extremely different to whatever I’ve experienced before. So, definitely something to work on. But for now, we have to build from where we are. Tomorrow is going to be an interesting race, the first race of the season, and let’s see how we’re going to perform from there.”
Callum Ilott, No. 90 PREMA Racing Chevrolet:
“It was not a solid qualifying. We need to look into it quite a bit. We just couldn’t get the tires to work and couldn’t put anything together. I think if we were able to add something, we would be a little bit closer. I think it was just a messy session and everything you want to not happen happened. We can make some changes for tomorrow and at least we can only go forwards.”
Josef Newgarden, No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet:
“We’ve had a fast car since we’ve got this. Team Chevy has done an incredible job. Hopefully, one of our teammates here will take the ball and get a Chevy on pole. We are going to focus on tomorrow now. You know, 10th isn’t bad; it’s not great. Even though we don’t have a good starting spot, I know our car is good. I just want to have a clean race. Of course, I want to be up front, and I want to win the thing. That’s my ultimate dream for tomorrow, but we need to get points on the board. We need to have a good, clean day. I think we can do that.”
Scott McLaughlin, No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet:
“Yesterday – with our wreck at the end of the session – was not how we wanted to start the weekend, but there is so much trust amongst everyone on this DEX Imaging Chevy. No one ever dropped their head, and the vibes have been positive the entire time. Track position in a two-stop race is very important so this was a huge pole position, not to mention my 70th for Team Penske. Very proud of that and very proud of our effort today.”
On winning from pole in 2022 and the importance of qualifying…
“I just wanted to get pole at the first race of the year. Good vibes. Great vibes. Immaculate vibes. I’m very excited. Great spot to start. We’ll do what we can in the race and see how we go. Really proud of everyone at Team Chevy, everyone at Team Penske in the offseason. It’s hard to keep doing this, keep being fast, and there’s a ton of respect and competitiveness down pit lane so to continue this is amazing.”
Take us through that Firestone Fast Six…
“The car was awesome. Immaculate vibes here for the Thirsty Three’s. Really proud of it. The DEX Imagine Chevy was fast. I put it in the fence there yesterday and I was pretty (mad) at myself. I was glad to come back and deliver when I needed to today, and really proud of the group.”
Talk about the tire degradation…
“You can definitely feel the tire deg for sure. We’re going to have to work hard to look after them, but I think we had a great strategy.”
Will Power, No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet:
“It was pretty good. I just carried too much speed into the first corner of that lap and understood why I had to lift. It was enough to get me through. Just frustrating because I know we have a good car.”
On damaging tires when pushing that hard…
“If you push, you don’t destroy the front. You just don’t have time for another lap. I just pushed wide. I got on the throttle, but I had to back out. That’s more of what happened.”
Scott McLaughlin, driver of the No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet, met with members of the media after qualifying. Transcript:
MODERATOR: Welcome in Scott McLaughlin, his 11th NTT INDYCAR SERIES P1 award, second here in St. Pete. It is the 12th for Team Penske here on the streets of St. Petersburg. For the organization, it is their 699th pole position.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: My 70th. Pretty cool. I know my stats, don’t worry (smiling).
THE MODERATOR: Not bad. Congratulations. No better way to start 2025.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Great start. Thanks, Dave. Just super pumped with that. Basically from the Q1 group one that we did, really felt like the car had it in it. In Q2, we sort of scraped in, just sort of missed the balance.
Once we centered the balance up again for Q3, knew in the first run it was going to be pretty good, I could sort of lay it down as much as I could. Full commitment lap, as everyone else was. Certainly felt like I had a lot more confidence in the car.
Credit to the team because ultimately I gave them a bit of work last night. They were here till 8:30. To come back and put it on pole… I don’t want to keep doing that, but ultimately if I do that and do pole the next day, that makes up for it a lot.
We’ll keep working, hopefully convert it tomorrow.
THE MODERATOR: Quite a story the last 24 hours. I think I saw Kyle Moyer with pizzas being delivered late last night.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Kyle is sick. He likes that. He likes fixing car. He’s a handyman.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll open it up for questions.
Q. Scott, the car this morning, any extra work or changes on it after the fix?
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, it was an improvement on yesterday, for sure. But we still had to keep working at it. I thought the best the car has been this weekend was in qualifying. That was the main thing. I was really happy with it. Only in Q2 was where I wasn’t happy and we turned it around.
Q. I think Colton, you heard Scott say it was probably a three-stop race with these tires. Do you believe that? Are you surprised there’s as much falloff as there is?
COLTON HERTA: Yeah, I think it was more extreme than I thought it was going to be. Usually when we have deg races, we deg on the red tires or soft compound, it’s more so like you can maybe get a second lap in in qualifying. It was interesting to feel that.
I think tomorrow is going to be interesting because of that. For sure no doubt in my mind a three-stopper. There’s no way anybody takes these tires to 30 laps or whatever it is to do the two-stopper. How long can you make them last? What is that going to look like? Is it going to be five laps? 15 laps? It’s all going to be dependent, at least for us, on what guys do behind us. We’ll kind of pit from there.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, I agree (smiling). Honestly, there’s not much to add. I think it’s going to be a bit of a see what you can do. Obviously you don’t want to lose too much time mucking around on a set of tires if you’re getting hammered on the under-cart or vice versa.
Interesting warm-up to see where we’re all at.
Q. …you finished third in the championship last year. The importance of this race is getting off the season to a fast start. How important is it to leave here with a fast start?
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, look, payday is tomorrow. I can’t speak on behalf of Colton. I’m sure he’s the same way. We just want to get a good race under our belt tomorrow. Ideally a win. But you try to get away from here with a podium or a top five and you just sort of run away with it. It’s a nice feeling to take those points and get going.
For my circumstance, I need a stronger start compared to my last few years to make sure I’m not chasing my tail halfway through the year.
Q. Scott, first pole as a dad. What would it mean to be able to celebrate in pit lane with a new member?
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I said to Karly, if I do get pole, run from the bus to pit lane because I want to get a photo with her for that moment. Hopefully we can do it from Victory Lane tomorrow. Ultimately it was super special. She was awake, too, so ideal timing.
THE MODERATOR: Pretty good luck charm there.
Q. (Off microphone.)
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: It’s just nice. I’ve told her to stay away as much as she can.
Q. Scott, I’m sure this probably isn’t as big of an accomplishment as your first pole as a dad. Given the circumstances of the last 24 hours, what does it mean to you to be able to pull out a pole?
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, for sure. The hit that I had yesterday wasn’t as bad as it looked. The theatrics were pretty crazy. Ultimately you hate giving the team extra work, go over the garage hours and whatnot. Anything you can do to repay them. They always just say go out and get pole, do whatever. The team composure just… They love working on it.
Long hours suck, but it’s kind of a passion. It’s just nice to repay them in some ways. The only way I can do it apart from maybe a Coors Light after the race or something like that. That’s probably it, so…
Q. Scott, you signed a new deal with Team Penske. How long was this in the works? When did it get over the line? How does it feel to get it over the line?
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, just over the off-season, man. Was a simple sort of conversation we all had. It was done pretty quickly, I guess. So yeah, pumped to do that. Good security for me and my family moving forward.
Yeah, it’s something that takes another focus off what I’ve done. Focus and get going. Yeah, I was pumped to get it done.
Q. Your fifth season in INDYCAR. You beat your Penske teammates last couple of years, won on every type of track. Have you given time to reflect on the rise you’ve been on?
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, it’s crazy. I’m proud of the opportunity to come here. Never thought I’d probably be here. I was talking today to a friend. Seven years in the main series in Australia. Now I’m in my fifth season in INDYCAR. I’m not far away from being longer in the professional INDYCAR, as a professional driver in the INDYCAR SERIES, than the Super Car Series. It’s kind of crazy how my life has changed.
But love it. Love every second here. Enjoy America. I love it. I love it here. Don’t really see any plans on leaving. I’m really enjoying it.
Q. For you personally, psychologically after what appears to be a massive off-season, to come back this strong straightaway, that’s a great way to kick-start the season?
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I’m just glad I’m a dad now. I haven’t lost 2/10ths like everyone says (laughter). I had a 2/10th game plan on Colton.
Having Lucy in the off-season, probably the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. There’s more to life than racing in some ways. I said to many people throughout the week that I feel like when I go home, I’ve got a home. I’m worried about my wife and my daughter, my family. Then when I go to the workshop, I’m refreshed, I’m excited. It’s not that I don’t think about them. I’m so focused on work because I know when I get home, I’m going to be too busy changing diapers, whatever.
I’m really happy with the work/life balance I’ve got going here. It’s a credit to my wife and my family. Yeah, just really enjoying it so far.
Q. During the off-season, Lucy, the Rolex. When you get back, do you feel this is the time to get the season going again? This is game time again now?
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, for sure. What a place to start. St. Pete is a track that always provides so many great memories and vibes and people here are so passionate. There’s so many people that are probably not race fans but just enjoy the theatrics, the racing itself, just enjoy it. It’s such a different demographic you see here. It’s really cool.
Yeah, it’s a great way to kick off the season for us in INDYCAR.
THE MODERATOR: Maybe the good vibes will continue tomorrow. Thank you, Scott.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Immaculate.
