IndyCar: Rosenqvist wins pole for PPG 375 in Texas

–by Mark Cipolloni–

With speeds down about 3 mph from the morning practice and no tows, Felix Rosenqvist won the pole for the PPG 375 NTT IndyCar race at Texas Motor Speedway with an average speed over two laps of 220.264 mph.

Rosenqvist set his fast time early and had to wait out a host of challengers to take the pole here for the 2nd year in a row.

Ganassi Honda veteran Scott Dixon came closest to knocking Rosenqvist off the pole but came up just short at 219.972mph.

Rosenqvist’s Arrow McLaren teammate Alexander Rossi was third fastest at 219.960mph.

“It was good,” said Rossi.

“Amazing result for the team to be one, three and five. It’s one of the stronger qualifying rounds I’ve been a part of. Practice was good, and the car’s been awesome off the truck. It’s a testament to the work the team’s done. I’m looking forward to carrying over that same positivity to the race car, and if we do that, we’ll have an awesome day tomorrow.”

Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden and Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward rounded out the top-5 as Arrow McLaren put all three of its Chevy-powered cars in the top-5.

FELIX ROSENQVIST, NO. 6 ARROW MCLAREN CHEVROLET:

“Waiting for most of the field to run is kind of what we went through last year. It was funny how similar that was to 2022. We have a great, great car! Thanks to McLaren, NTT DATA, Chevrolet and all our partners for just doing a phenomenal job to put us in this position. All three of us are quick and it’s always in the details by the team you know. It’s flat out just trying to shorten that track distance. And it worked out.

“It’s nice. I don’t know if you will really want to lead this race because of fuel. So maybe I’ll drop back a couple of sessions. We will kind of have to figure that out tomorrow, depending on how the car feels and race trim we have.  It’s nice man. It’s nice to be in the beehive. Big field nowadays and fun.

“Great car. Arrow McLaren just gave us a weapon today again. I think we kind of just built on last year. Maybe it’s a good thing to start out early, I don’t know. The track kind of warmed up, so we’ll take it. Big thanks to all of our partners. Velo, NTT, Arrow, they’ve done just a phenomenal job. I think we’ve always been good here, but this is a whole different confidence level compared to last year. Let’s try to wrap it up tomorrow.”

On team confidence with him and the team…

“I think it is. It’s definitely a calm, and we’re all pretty nice and calm. Everyone at the No. 6 car, especially, I think we’re just kind of doing our thing. Not looking much at the others, and we were chatting there ‘Let’s not celebrate too early here.’ You never know if there’s a magic wind putting Marcus (Ericsson) into P1, but it was an amazing qualifying. I don’t think we could have done much better with what we had. Big thanks to everyone.”

Qualifying Results