PORTLAND, Ore. (Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026) – Felix Rosenqvist wants to add another win for Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian before he leaves the team at the end of this season.
He’ll have one of his best chances to achieve that goal after winning the NTT P1 Award for the OnlyBulls Grand Prix of Portland on Saturday at Portland International Raceway.
Rosenqvist, who won the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge in May, earned his second pole of the season and eighth of his career in the No. 60 SiriusXM Honda sporting a colorful livery this weekend saluting legendary rock band the Grateful Dead. His best lap was 58.4828 seconds, completed with three seconds remaining in a taut Firestone Fast Six session.
That was enough to edge series leader and four-time NTT INDYCAR SERIES champion Alex Palou, who will join Rosenqvist on the front row Sunday after his best lap of 58.5012 in the No. 10 DHL Chip Ganassi Racing Honda.
“It’s a phenomenal team effort,” Rosenqvist said. “We just kept tuning on it. I think we started off a little bit behind yesterday and really didn’t do anything magical. We just tried to focus on execution and putting all the corners together.”
The Swede is leaving MSR – a team that has two career victories, both in the Indy 500 – after this season for Arrow McLaren, where he will join six-time series champion and team newcomer Scott Dixon and team veteran Pato O’Ward.
Palou, aiming for a record-tying fourth straight championship, just missed earning his seventh pole of the season when Rosenqvist ended his final lap on the 12-turn, 1.964-mile road course.
“I had too much lunch today, man,” Palou said with a smile when asked where he could have found more speed on his best lap. “It’s so close. It hurts when it’s that close. But happy for Felix, happy for a Honda 1-2 there. Let’s see what kind of car we have for the race.”
The 110-lap race starts at 4 p.m. ET Sunday on FOX, FOX Deportes. FOX One and INDYCAR Radio powered by OnlyBulls.
Will Power moved to Andretti Global this season after winning this race in 2024 and 2025, the last two of his 16 full-time seasons with Team Penske, but he showed why this is one of his favorite tracks by qualifying third at 58.5130 in the No. 26 TWG AI Honda.
Power’s teammate Marcus Ericsson celebrated his contract renewal this week with Andretti Global for 2027 by qualifying fourth at 58.6729 in the No. 28 Delaware Life Honda.
Rinus VeeKay continued his strong season by producing the quickest lap by a Chevrolet-powered driver, ending up fifth at 58.7701 in the No. 76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevy. Kyffin Simpson will join VeeKay in the third row of the starting grid after qualifying sixth at 59.0841 in the No. 8 Sunoco Chip Ganassi Racing Honda, his first appearance this season in the Firestone Fast Six.
Honda-powered drivers dominated qualifying, leading all three rounds in the knockout format and grabbing 10 of the first 12 qualifying spots.
Besides VeeKay, the only Bowtie driver who qualified in the top 12 is championship contender David Malukas, who qualified ninth at 58.8690 in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet. But Malukas will start six places back from that position as a penalty for an unapproved engine change at the previous round at Nashville Superspeedway, adding to his challenge Sunday.
Palou leads second-place Malukas by 83 points – a gap of more than a race – with six races remaining. A clean, steady race could expand that gap because Malukas and third-place Kyle Kirkwood are starting behind the reigning series champion, with PIR’s tight first-corner chicane sometimes inducing chaos and carnage toward the middle and back of the starting grid.
Kirkwood qualified seventh at 58.8303 in the No. 27 Sam’s Club Honda of Andretti Global, missing a spot in the Firestone Fast Six by .0352 of a second.
Christian Lundgaard has scored more points on natural road courses like PIR than any driver this season, but he struggled with various mechanical problems and didn’t make it out the first round. He qualified 25th at 59.5423 in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.
