MONTEREY, Calif. (Saturday, July 26, 2025) – The NTT INDYCAR SERIES’ title fight will be easy to follow Sunday at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The top two championship contenders will start the Java House Grand Prix of Monterey together on the front row.
Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou and Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward will be 1-2 when the green flag drops shortly after 3 p.m. ET (FOX, FOX Deportes, FOX Sports app, INDYCAR Radio Network). They happen to be the winners of the season’s past three races and four of the past five.
Palou’s best lap in Saturday’s Firestone Fast Six round was clocked at 1 minute, 8.3413 seconds, and that time was nearly three-tenths of a second quicker than O’Ward’s fastest tour of the 11-turn, 2.238-mile road course. O’Ward’s lap was 1:08.6280.
O’Ward called Palou’s performance in the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda “a monster lap.”
“It felt amazing,” Palou said. “Honestly, the car has been amazing (all weekend). I’ve felt we had a ton of pace, like all year. Everybody at CGR has been doing a tremendous job making me look good on track.”
Last year, Palou won this race for the second time in three years, and his average finish in four races is 1.8. He won the 2022 race by more than 30 seconds. O’Ward’s average finish at this track is 7.5.
A win Sunday would all but cement Palou’s third consecutive series championship and fourth in five years. He holds a 99-point lead heading to the season’s final four races, and winning the pole will add another point to his accumulation.
Palou already has seven wins in the season’s first 13 races, and he is driving toward history. The record for most series wins in a season has stood since A.J. Foyt won 10 of the 13 races in 1964. Six years later, Al Unser matched that total in 18 races. Only eight drivers have won eight or more races in a given season.
The NTT P1 Award was Palou’s fifth of the season, tying his personal mark set in 2023.
O’Ward was pleased to earn his third front-row start of the season – he was on the pole at The Thermal Club in late March and qualified third for the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge – but he knows a massive challenge awaits him.
“(Palou) is the guy we have to beat, and he’s starting in front of us,” the driver of the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet said. “We’ll see what tomorrow has in store (for us).”
Like Palou, O’Ward has goals to pursue. He set a personal mark last year with three race wins; he has two so far this season. He also is seeking his first title at this level after winning the INDY NXT by Firestone championship in 2018.
Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, who won this event in 2023, is one of the four drivers to have won races this season. But the driver of the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda did not advance to the second round of qualifying and will start the race from the 19th position. Only once in the 27 previous series races has the winner started outside the top 11. Max Papis won the 2001 race from the 25th position.
Palou, Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood (three wins) and O’Ward are the other race winners this season. Kirkwood will start 18th in the No. 27 JM Bullion Honda after bobbling on the exit of the track’s famous Corkscrew corner.
The only incident of note in qualifying occurred when Felix Rosenqvist of Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb-Agajanian went wide in Turn 5 late in the second round. The driver of the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb-Agajanian was on pace to advance to the Firestone Fast Six until the slide into the gravel pit required a local yellow, which by rule disqualified the Swede’s fastest lap. He will start Sunday’s race from the 12th position.
“I went in (to Turn 5) a little hard and I couldn’t save it,” the event’s 2023 pole winner said. “It’s unfortunate. Yeah, it is what it is. My bad.”
Qualifying was the NTT INDYCAR SERIES’ first session of the day as the morning practice was cancelled amid lingering fog on the Monterey Peninsula. With the same weather expected Sunday morning, INDYCAR officials rescheduled the weekend’s third and final practice to the end of this day.
