Felix spearheaded a promising start to the 2025 INDYCAR season for Meyer Shank Racing by leading home new team-mate Marcus Armstrong in a lock-out of the second row in St. Petersburg qualifying.
Breezing through the opening group stages, Felix progressed comfortably into the subsequent Top 12 phase of the session, where he then took P5 to secure a spot in the decisive Fast 6 segment.
Once there, Felix powered to the top of the timing screens on his first flying lap, which ultimately proved enough for P3 on the season-opening grid as Scott McLaughlin and Colton Herta improved on their final attempts.
Felix wound up two tenths behind pole-setter McLaughlin, and a mere 0.06s behind second-placed Herta.
With team-mate Armstrong taking P4 a further tenth back, qualifying marked a highly positive start to the new campaign for Meyer Shank Racing, with both cars sharing the second row of the grid in Sunday’s 100-lap curtain-raiser.
“P3, we’ll take it. I don’t know if I could have got the pole. I was up on my second lap, but I think I accidently might have hit the pit limiter. We have to see what happened but the car just kind of died. Anyway, a cool day for Meyer Shank Racing with P3-P4, we have Shinedown on the car this weekend, one of my favourite bands when I grew up, so quite a start to the season!
“Looking to tomorrow, I think it will be a very challenging race. It’s going to be hard to do a stint on those soft tyres – they fall off very quickly – and even the blacks (hard) to be fair. It’s going to be a different St. Pete to last year. Having said that, I think our set-up should be pretty good on the long runs this year, so I’m excited to find out what it will be like tomorrow.
“A really good day for us locking out the second row of the grid here.”
