Felix delivered what he labelled “one of the best laps of my life” to bring home an emotional pole position ahead of his last race for Arrow McLaren at the NTT INDYCAR SERIES finale at Laguna Seca.
Still shaking with adrenaline after completing his P1-grabbing lap in the concluding Fast Six segment of qualifying, Felix descended into a sea of papaya joy on pit lane to celebrate his second pole of the year – leaving him at the head of the field for Sunday’s season-ending Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey.
With the repaved Laguna Seca circuit producing incredible grip, Felix’s benchmark time of 1m06.641s proved a massive five seconds (!) faster than last year’s pole position effort recorded by Will Power (1m11.612s). It was enough to pip Scott McLaughlin to P1 by 0.009s.
It marks Felix’s fifth career INDYCAR pole, and his first ever at Laguna Seca – a venue known historically to favor track position more than any other on the calendar.
“That was one of the best laps of my life,” says Felix Rosenqvist. “I think it’s the combination of this track and this team. It was a gorilla lap; I had to wrestle my way to it with a lot of sketchy moments, but that just made it so much more special.
“Big thanks to Arrow McLaren, NTT DATA and Team Chevy. It will be our last race tomorrow, so what a way to get that going. Especially here with track position being super important – we couldn’t have given ourselves a better opportunity.
“Like Portland, today shows what we’re truly capable of. I think we’re absolutely one of the fastest when we get it together. It’s been a difficult weekend for everyone here with a lot of red flags and no clear laps until qualifying, but we made the most of it and it was worth the wait.
“It will be an extremely physical race tomorrow. The grip is insane out there, but I said it before the weekend and I’ll say it again: I will give it everything I’ve got, and more.”
The Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey will run for 95 laps and gets underway at 11:30 am local time (U.S. Pacific) on Sunday.