After 2 beautiful days in the hills of Laguna Seca, we have our finally grid for IndyCar 2026.
At the end of P1 on Friday it was our newly crowned 2026 Champion Alex Palou leading the field after 500 laps were turned by all the cars in the field. The weather couldn’t be better overnight in the 50s and the high is only 70.
Saturday morning started perfectly with the sounds of History IndyCars roaring around the track, unfortunately a Porsche in one of the support races had a horrible off in the Corkscrew. The driver was not seriously injured, but the car was destroyed as it hit the outside fence and flipped over into the trees. The fence and tire wall had to be rebuilt which was now going to cut into the second practice session. By the time everything was back in place there was only 25 mins available for that session and when the green waved every car was immediately on track. The field lost about an hour that would normally have to sort the car before qualifying to set the grid for Sunday’s race.
The Chip Ganassi car was running strong all weekend, could anyone spoil the parade we had seen in practice.
It came down to the firestone Fast 6, Palou Rosenqvist McLaughlin Lundgaard and Malukas in a shootout for the Pole Position.
Rossi led the open few mins as the teams worked to improve their cars, then as expected Palou rose to top, and we thought he had done it again when at the last lap McLaughlin grabbed the pole for the Mission Foods Grand Prix of Monterey. Scott won Chevy’s 250 pole for the manufacture.
Article: Richard Height
Photos: Chuck Null
