IndyCar
Colton Herta Wins IndyCar Pole At Laguna Seca; Scott Dixon Starts 2nd
MONTEREY, CA (Pittsburgh Racing Now) – Harding Steinbrenner Racing’s Colton Herta is on the pole for Sunday’s NTT IndyCar Series Season Finale at WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca.
“We obviously had a great car this whole weekend, and after leading coming just straight off the truck and leading, being P2 in the morning and Thursday, leading the day Thursday and leading practice 1, being there in practice 2 and 3 and obviously getting the pole, it just shows the charisma of the team and everything we’re doing has been in the right directions,” said Herta. “Obviously, it feels great, now it’s two poles in two weekends.”
Herta’s fast lap of 1-minute, 10.1405-seconds (114.867 mph) in knockout-style qualifying was 0.0426-seconds faster than PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon (1:10.1831/114.797mph), who will start on the outside of the front row. Dixon needed the bonus point for winning the pole in his quest for a sixth Championship.
“It was definitely a good recovery for us,” said Dixon, the five-time and defending series Champion. “We’d been struggling a little bit all weekend. I’d just been struggling to get the time out of the new tires. I think we did a good job. I know our second run pace on used tires had been really good all weekend, it was just I hadn’t been able to get the speed out of the new ones. It was a nice surprise, and you know, in a good position.”
Two of the drivers Dixon is chasing in the Championship, Andretti Autosports Alexander Rossi and Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, the series points leader, are starting behind him in 3rd and 4th respectively.
“We’ve had a pretty challenging two-and-a-half days for the (No.) 27 NAPA Andretti Honda group – really the Andretti Autosport group as a whole,” said Rossi. “We had peaks and valleys, but it came good this afternoon for the most part. It’s tough when you miss out by seven-hundredths. You can find a lot of places in a lap where you give that up. We just have to keep working at it and come up with a good race car strategy for tomorrow.”
“In our situation it’s a good thing to be close to the competition, specifically the ones in the championship,” said Newgarden. “We’ve got to have a good clean run tomorrow. You’d like to win every race and maybe we’ve got a race-winning car tomorrow. It certainly feels like we have the capability of it. But we need to have a good clean day, try and not get caught up in anything, and just run our race like we normally would. I think that’s what we’ll try and focus on.”
Arrow Schmidt Petersen Motorsports James Hinchcliffe will start fifth and Penske’s Simon Pagenaud, who is also in front of Dixon in the Championship hunt, will start sixth.
“It’s been a tough log up to this last point. The test day wasn’t super productive for us and unfortunately then, over Friday and this morning, we were thrown all sorts of set up changes at the car. I’ve been having to learn how to drive a different car every session. We never gave up and huge credit to the engineers, and everybody, for keeping their heads down and coming up with the setup at the end of Practice 3 this morning, which was something we could work with.”
it was definitely an intense qualifying,” said Pagenaud. “We pushed as hard as we could to try to be ahead. Very exciting. It was a very stressful situation but overall, I wanted to be on the pole. I think we all wanted to be on the pole. But it was very tight. It was very important to at least transfer to the Fast Six, and I think we tried everything we could. I was attacking everywhere, maybe a little too much at times, but that was the time to go. Absolutely no regrets, and we did the best we could.”
Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey, a 90-lap race, will be televised live on NBC beginning with the pre-race show at 2:30 p.m. ET (11:30 a.m. PT) with the green flag scheduled for 3:15 p.m. (12:15 p.m. PT). The race also will be broadcast on the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network and SiriusXM Satellite Radio (XM 205, Sirius 98).
DETROIT, MI (June 1, 2025) – Kyle Kirkwood is the winner of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. The win was Kirkwood’s second of the season and fourth of his career.
Kirkwood started third on the grid and moved up to second early in the race and took advantage to grab the lead from teammate Colton Herta who finished third.
“This AWS Honda was on rails all weekend long,” said Kirkwood. “There were some challenges out there, that’s for sure. We had to pass our way back through a handful of times, and it was definitely not a walk in the park.”
This 100-lap race on the notoriously bumpy and tight nine-turn, 1.645-mile circuit on the streets of downtown Detroit came down to strategy and survival.
The 27-car field divided into two strategic camps at the start, with 12 cars beginning the race on Firestone’s grippier but less durable Firehawk alternate tires and 15 on the slower but more durable primary tires. The top nine starters, which included pole sitter Herta and teammate Kirkwood, opted to start on the softer alternate tire and shed it as soon as possible for the durability of the harder tire. INDYCAR rules require that all drivers must use both tire compounds for at least two laps per race.
That divided the field into separate pit cycles, with drivers on both strategies being forced to fight their way through the field after each stop while waiting for drivers on alternative tactics to pit.
The win has Honda Racing’s seventh of the season, continuing a season-long lockout of victories among engine manufacturers and gave Honda a weekend sweep after their Acura brand won the IMSA race on Saturday in the Motor City.
“ Amazing weekend for Honda, HRC, and also Acura,” said Kevin Fu, Vice President, Honda Racing Corporation USA. “Between our IndyCar and IMSA programs we got two poles and two wins in Detroit, and our seventh victory in a row in IndyCar. This is unprecedented start to the season for us. As always, thanks to the teams and all the folks back at HRC in Santa Clarita for all their continuous hard work, and the work they’ve done off season to get us to this point.”
The win moved Kirkwood up to second in the Championship points standings, 78-points behind leader Alex Palou, who was taken out by David Malukas going into Turn 1 on a restart.
AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci came home second for his best career finish and the team’s best finish of the season and best road or street course finish in a decade.
“It feels great,” said Ferrucci. “Honestly, the strategy plays into everything that we do, especially at road and street courses it’s very tough, and I can’t thank the team enough. This is more deserving of them than it is even of me. We probably drove to 11th minus the strategy just running our race.”
Team Penske’s Will Power finished fourth in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet followed by Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyffin Simpson in fifth. The fifth place finish was a career best for Simpson, the second-year driver from the Cayman Islands.
“It was a great, great race for us in the #8 Ridgeline Honda,” said Simpson. “I think we had a lot of pace, especially when running on the green tires, and we were able to really make strong gains through the field on that strategy.”
The next NTT INDYCAR SERIES event is the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline on Sunday evening, June 15 at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.
DETROIT, MI (June 1, 2025) Alex Palou’s race on the streets of Detroit is over early after contact on a restart from David Malkus sent the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda into the tire barriers at the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.
The Indianapolis 500 winner was running fourth on Lap 72 when the race restarted following a caution and entering Turn 1, Malukas came in too fast, made contact with Palou ending his day and his almost perfect season.
Palou came into the race with five wins in six event with a worst finish of second at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Detroit ended that streak and Palou was credited with a 25th place finish.
“We were just biding our time there in fourth,” explained Palou. “Hoping to sneak onto the podium there at the end but we were hit from behind. Not much we could do there.”
Palou came into the race with a 112-point lead in the season long Championship over Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward.
DETROIT, MI (May 31, 2025) – Andretti Global’s Colton Herta is on the pole position for Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix, the 1.645-mile, nine-turn temporary street course run on the streets of downtown Detroit.
Herta’s fast lap of 1 minute, .4779 of a second in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda was good enough to claim his first pole of 2025 and 15th of his NTT INDYCAR SERIES career.
“I was happy with it,” said Herta. “Friday was pretty bad from us as far as what we’re used to on street courses, just the feel of the race car. So it kind of — Friday night to go over everything and turn everything around. The engineering group did a great job.”
David Malukas, coming off a strong finish at the Indy 500, continued the momentum grabbing the second starting spot at 1:00.6492 in the No. 4 Clarience Technologies Chevrolet for A.J. Foyt Enterprises.
“Everything just clicked,” said Malukas. “We kept our heads down and just committed. I thought we had a good car, and clearly it went out and showed that.”
Herta’s teammate Kyle Kirkwood lines up third after a fast lap of 1:00.7312 in the No. 27 Siemens AWS Honda. Kirkwood led practice Friday, while Herta paced the Saturday morning practice session.
Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard will start beside Kirkwood in the fourth position after a quick lap of 1:00.8938 in the No. 7 Chevrolet.
Rahal Letterman Laningan Racing’s Graham Rahal will start fifth after posting a 1:01.0651 in the No. 15 JJ Curran Crane Company Honda.
Lining up beside Rahal will be Championship points leader and 109th Indianapolis 500 winner Alex Palou who put up a 1:01.4680 in the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. Palou, who’s won five of the six races this year, holds a 112-point lead over Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, who will start 18th after failing to advance out of the first round of knockout-style qualifying.
Palou’s CGR teammate Scott Dixon qualified 10th in the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda after turning a 1:01:1595.
Dixon and Rahal however will have those qualifying efforts nullified after being penalized for unapproved engine changes prior to the Sunday, May 25 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Rahal and Dixon will receive a six-position starting grid penalty for violating the INDYCAR rule. Rahal now rolls off 11th and Dixon 16th.
The 100-lap race starts Sunday at 12:30 p.m. ET (FOX, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network).
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