CHEVROLET IN NTT INDYCAR SERIES
CHEVROLET DETROIT GRAND PRIX
STREETS OF DETROIT
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
TEAM CHEVY QUALIFYING REPORT
MAY 31, 2025
DAVID MALUKAS PUTS CHEVROLET ON FRONT ROW AT DETROIT
- Continuing the momentum from their runner-up finish in the Indianapolis 500, David Malukas and the No. 4 Clarience Technologies AJ Foyt Racing Chevrolet team put together a qualifying effort to start second, on the outside of the front row, of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.
- Today’s qualifying result ties the best starting position for the first year Team Chevy driver.
- Christian Lundgaard continued his consistent season with a solid fourth place qualifying result in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.
- It is the Danish driver’s third trip to the Firestone Fast Six and sixth to the Fast 12 in his first season with Arrow McLaren and Chevrolet.
- Scott McLaughlin, No. 3 TireRack Team Penske Chevrolet, Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet and Christian, No. 21 ECR Splenda Chevrolet qualified eighth, ninth and 12th respectively to give Chevrolet five of the top-12 starting positions
Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear Qualifying Results:
Sunday
NTT INDYCAR SERIES Warm Up – 9:30am (ET)/8:30am (CT)/7:30am (MT)/6:30am (PT) – FS1/INDYCAR Radio Network/SIRIUSXM 218
Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix (85 laps) – 12:30pm (ET)/11:30am (CT)/10:30am (MT)/9:30am (PT) – FOX/INDYCAR Radio Network/SIRIUSXM 218
David Malukas, No. 4 Clarience Technologies Chevrolet qualified 2nd:
“We’re starting off where we finished in that P2 spot. Really good session. As soon as we unloaded the car in Detroit, we knew we had a good car. I’ve been really happy. Having that whole month, being with the guys, and understanding what we want. Having Clarience Technologies on board with us, they’re estatic. I think the mood is really lifted up on us and I think we can see this momentum carrying. What a good car, what a good group of guys here. We’re on a good run here. We’re a little bit butt hurt, because I think we had a car to compete with Herta’s time. We just made a few tweaks. First time back in the Fast Six for a while. Very happy run.”
What do you like about this track?
“It’s so technical. It’s something that I love. These temperatures are something that have suited me since go karting as a little kid. Everything opened up for us today. These engineers, these guys, Derek (Milller) from Chevy, he done some incredible stuff. Really, really cool things and I think finally the work we’ve put in the first half of the year is paying off.
Christian Lundgaard, No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet qualified 4th:
“I think we’ve had a good car all weekend, and, it was just really executing. I was a little frustrated in Q1, you know, being put behind cars that we know are slower, and they’re just going to stack up and it could potentially cost us going to Fast 12 and it just ruins your weekend. So, ultimately, we did the job. We were in the Fast 6. Just continuing the momentum we’ve had, so kudos to the team. T We got fourth kind of the best of the non-new tire runners. So pretty happy, but again, we got to be fast tomorrow. That’s that’s when it counts.
Scott McLaughlin, No. 3 TireRack.com Team Penske Chevrolet qualified 8th:
It was OK. I caught Rasmussen at the wrong time on that push lap. I think we missed by a hundredth. It’s so tight in INDYCAR you can’t afford to give yourself enough gap to get a run. I think we maximized as much as we could and that’s where we are.
Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet qualified 9th:
“Woooh. That was a good lap. I think I missed a bit in (Turn) 3 because the lap before I locked up. I just needed to do it the lap before. That’s where the tire was the best. One-tenth gets us through. It’s INDYCAR, man, it’s so, so, so tight. If you leave a little bit of something somewhere, you’re not going to make it. Not a big deal here. It’s a lot of mayhem. For that lap, that’s only ninth. My gosh.”
Christian Rasmussen, No. 21 ECR Splenda Chevrolet qualified 12th:
“First Fast 12 of the year, so that’s good. The car has been great all weekend, and getting it done here in qualifying was good. I think we were hoping for a little bit more once we transferred. But, I didn’t really have a great run in the Fast 12, which ultimately put us 12th in that session. Overall, happy. Good starting position for the race. Probably a lot of stuff happening in this race, so there is plenty of opportunity to do something good.”
Alexander Rossi, No. 20 ECR Java House Chevrolet qualified 16th:
What is take the takeaway from this qualifying session?
“I don’t I don’t have one yet. We’re looking at it. I mean, we just we weren’t quick enough.”
On welcoming unpredictability of this race?
“I don’t know if welcome is it the right is the right word. I mean, obviously, it opens up strategy options when there’s chaos, but I don’t think that’s a good show either. So, the trend this year has been pretty green. So, we’ll see what it brings. We can’t control that.”
Callum Ilott, No, 90 PREMA Racing Chevrolet qualified 17th:
“I’m pretty annoyed. I didn’t get the last lap in well. We had a chance to transfer and just didn’t put it together. But, yeah, it’s so close. It makes such a difference. I think I was fourth after that last lap, but, yeah, everyone improved and I didn’t”
Pato O’Ward, No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet qualified 18th:
“It’s been a really difficult and challenging weekend. We’ll just have to see what tomorrow could bring.”
Santino Ferrucci, No. 14 Sexton Properties / A.J. Foyt Racing Chevrolet qualified 21st:
“Obviously not happy with myself and qualifying, just a couple mistakes, still trying to figure out a really, really, solid balance. but you know, we’re definitely getting closer on it. Should have qualified a little bit better than we did, but it’s along race tomorrow; we’ll be fine.”
Robert Shwartzman, No. 83 PREMA Racing Chevrolet qualified 22nd:
“We struggled a bit with the pace today compared to the guys at the top. I had some traffic during my qualifying run so it was not the easiest or the smoothest lap. Overall, we did what we could, and we will have a look tonight to see what we can do to improve the car. Starting from 22nd tomorrow we will have some strong guys around me, but we will do our best in the race. It’s quite long, so we will need to play it smart in terms of strategy.”
Josef Newgarden, No. 2 Astemo Team Penske Chevrolet qualified 24th:
“Would obviously like to have that lap back. We were on a flier that would have transferred to the second round. That is just street course racing. It’s close quarters and you can’t make a mistake. The Astemo Chevy has been solid since we rolled off the truck so we can move forward tomorrow.”
Nolan Siegel, No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet qualified 27th:
“Not much to say about Qualifying. We did an out lap, had a spark plug issue, came in and stopped for the rest of the session. I think the car would’ve been fast, but I have no way of knowing. We’ll come back tomorrow and see what we have. It sucks because this is a race where Qualifying is so important, so we’ll do what we can tomorrow.”
PRESS CONFERENCE
DAVID MALUKAS
THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. Wrapping up qualifying ahead of tomorrow’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. Currently joined by David Malukas, driving the No. 4 Clarience Technologies Chevrolet for AJ Foyt Enterprises. It’s David’s third front row start of his career, the last one coming at Milwaukee, that was race 1 last year, the first time that AJ Foyt Enterprises has been on the front row since pole position last year when they started from pole that race with none other than Santino Ferrucci.
We brought you up here yesterday. You guys felt pretty good about it and continued that today.
DAVID MALUKAS: Yeah, I felt really good. We were actually ChatGPTing on the way here: Is that my best qualifying? Maybe on an oval, but I think for a street and road course, I think that’s the best qualifying.
Yeah, I mean, everything just clicked. Like I said after practice, we were very comfortable with the car, very happy, and yeah, it’s kind of chaos with the practice sessions figuring out who’s fast, who isn’t, where we are, because you’re getting one lap after every 20, 30 minutes of a clean lap, so it’s all kind of just a guessing game.
We kept our heads down and just committed. I thought we had a good car, and clearly it went out and showed that.
THE MODERATOR: It’s interesting, as chaotic as this place can be, 13, 14 cars out there at a time, it seemed pretty clean all told.
DAVID MALUKAS: Yeah, for sure, when you get the groups, then you’re in a much better scenario. Yeah, very clean. I think everybody just from previous years being here and obviously coming here this year, I think everybody started spacing out. They were doing some pretty big — parking, pulling clutch, waiting, waiting, just so everybody had a good gap for qualifying.
THE MODERATOR: Also worth noting this is an all-INDY NXT graduate front row.
Q. Good stuff for Chevy today?
DAVID MALUKAS: Yeah, really good. Obviously it was mentioned pre-briefing and before the weekend from last year, seemed like Honda had a little bit of an advantage, and it seems like Chevy has done an incredible job this year on the drivability side of things and the tools, and me and Derek (Miller) from Chevy have been working on a lot of different items, and the driver options are extent. It feels good, and I feel like we’ve found a really good mix of what I like and really showed the true power of Chevy today.
Q. You made a comment in the post-practice conference yesterday about how dirty the track was at the time. Now that you’ve made it through qualifying and everything, how are you feeling about the track, the state of evolution it goes through, and heading into the race tomorrow?
DAVID MALUKAS: Feeling better. I could say it was really good, no dust going through my eyes. Yeah, very big on the track evolution.
The thing that really caught us off guard was from practice to qualifying. Just from this morning it was crazy how much faster the times came in. We were group 2 to start, and seeing the group 1 times we were astonished by how much quicker everybody was. It was really good for us to go into group it and go, okay, I really need to start pushing these corners because that lap time is there.
Q. The drivers I talked to, even including the IMSA drivers, say that the track has been improved. Nevertheless, it’s still bumpy. Is there any secret you set up your car that you had a quick time, and did you do any changes from practice to the qualification?
DAVID MALUKAS: No secret, it’s just the AJ Foyt car is a very good car going over those bumps. I’m seeing other cars flying off of them, and our car takes them like a champ. Just a very good car underneath me, and I just drove to the absolute limit of the car.
Q. How will be personally your opinion the traffic situation in the race tomorrow?
DAVID MALUKAS: Well, thankfully we’re farther up, so hopefully it won’t be as much of an issue, but yeah, I mean, it’s going to be — through that whole infield section, going from 4 all the way through Turn 8 is going to be definitely pretty packed up and jumped up. But for me, I missed last year. I remember watching on the TV, so we’ll see how this year goes. Obviously with the progress of this year that it’s been, the yellows have been a lot less, so we’ll see if that continues.
Q. David, we all talk about the lack of yellows until now. Do you see drivers getting more frustrated this weekend than in the past, races this year?
DAVID MALUKAS: I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s maybe from frustration. Could be. Obviously maybe some drivers get more frustrated. But I don’t know if that has any effect towards the season or towards last year, but I think it’s more just dependent on had you this track is. It’s very inviting. We have a lot of open corners that just narrow out on the exit, so it seems inviting on initial and then you turn the corner and then there’s no more space. I still feel like that’s the reasoning why there’s more yellows on this track. But we’ll see.
All of this year, like I said before, our data says 100 percent there’s going to be a yellow. I swear one of the datapoints they said 107, so I was like, wow, 107 percent, that’s a lot. It’s even above 100; I don’t know how that makes sense, but it’s above 100 percent so we’ve got to go this strategy, and then there wasn’t a single yellow, not for that race but for like four races after that. So I was like, all right, I’m not looking at the data. So I don’t know.
Q. What do you think has happened with AJ Foyt this season? You did really well in Indy. I know you’ve done really well in Detroit. Two completely different tracks. Is that something you’ve just been working on?
DAVID MALUKAS: Yeah, I mean, we’ve had a slower start to the season, but for me it’s just coming in with a new team, new guys, and we’re trying to understand each other and understand the car and the setup. I think for all the meetings and things, I was just saying in the interviews before, I was waiting for the month of May to kick off because you’re with the guys every single day and can really build on something, and of course obviously the 500, oval setup, it’s a very different car, and I think the Foyt car has also been stronger than previous years, but that doesn’t go away from all the work we’ve been doing in the beginning of the season.
We were able to hone down, have a lot of time to look through it and really put things forward and start kind of getting a connection with everybody, and now coming into Detroit, I was very happy post-May that I knew our results would come. We just kept our heads down, and I think all that hard work that we’ve put in is really showing.
Q. You’ve spoken a lot about your kind of journey over the last, I guess, 16 months or so. But I’d like to ask, how is the risk now and what are you having to do to maintain that and maybe where it was compared to pre-accident?
DAVID MALUKAS: Yeah, I mean, that was another thing beginning of the season first few races, kind of having a little bit of a struggle bus there. I had another surgery at the end of last season to clean up some scar tissue and get more movement out of it, so obviously going back into the car, no matter what PT or training I can do, nothing is like the real deal, and the hand kind of got a little bit beat up on those first few races. But it’s at a good state now where there’s no more pain, and it’s pretty much at the maximum it will be. I obviously have a little bit of movement that’s never really going to come back. It’s kind of, it is what it is. But we’ve done a good job with moving things around in the car and kind of getting things to what I like, and I had to change my driving a little bit, and things are good now.
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