Felix Rosenqvist was within striking distance of being the Cinderella Story during Sunday’s PPG Armed Forces Qualifying session for the 110th running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, May 17.
The 34-year-old Rosenqvist from Värnamo, Sweden, entered Sunday’s qualifying session with high momentum after spending this past week’s four-day practice session (May 12-15) steadily climbing up the leaderboard and being one of the fastest competitors on the track. At the conclusion of the Fast Friday session on May 15, he was atop the leaderboard with a speed of 233.372 mph in 38.5650 seconds.
Rosenqvist commenced his qualifying session on Sunday. He was the 11th competitor to qualify based on a random qualifying draw that occurred on Friday. He was the lone competitor during the first session to post a four-lap average-qualifying run within the 232 mph range (232.599 mph, ultimately, through 2:34.7730).
After being one of 12 qualifiers to transfer to the second round, Rosenqvist backed up his strong qualifying start by notching another four-lap average-qualifying run in his No. 60 Morgan Wallen/SiriusXM/Meyer Shank Racing Dallara-Honda entry within the 232 mph range, with his latest being at 232.065 mph in 2:35.1289. The lap enabled the Swedish competitor, who was the last to qualify, to dethrone the defending Indianapolis 500 champion Alex Palou from the top of the charts momentarily and entering the Firestone Fast 6 round.
During the final Firestone 6 round, however, Rosenqvist, the last competitor to qualify for a second consecutive round, could not back up his two earlier runs. He primarily hovered around the 231 mph range and could not gain ground on Palou. And Palou ultimately achieved the pole position. When the checkered flag flew for Rosenqvist, he settled with the fourth-fastest average-qualifying run of 231.877 mph in 2:35.2549.
Following his final qualifying round, Rosenqvist was left disappointed over the speed he lost and could not regain. This was due to the high winds and warm temperatures throughout Indianapolis Motor Speedway towards the conclusion of qualifying.
“It was quite a big gap from Run 2 to Run 3, like 1.3 mph,” Rosenqvist said on FOX/. “It felt good. He continued, saying, “It just didn’t seem like it was that much in it. They just didn’t go as fast as they say.”
By notching the fourth-place starting spot for this year’s 110th running of the Indianapolis 500, Rosenqvist achieved his fifth consecutive top-10 starting spot for the NTT IndyCar Series’ prestigious, crown-jewel event on the calendar. He also notched his third top-three start of the 2026 season. He is coming off a third-place starting spot from the Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course last weekend and a pole from the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, California, in mid-April.
Ultimately, this year marks the third time in the previous four seasons that he transferred to the Firestone Fast 6 round as the fastest qualifier for an Indy 500 event. But then, fell short of achieving the pole position. His other two instances occurred in 2023 with Arrow McLaren, where he qualified a career-best third place. And then again, this past season with Meyer Shank Racing, where he ended up starting in fifth place.
“It’s kind of deja vu for me,” Rosenqvist said. “I had this three times now when we got into the last [qualifying] round and want to finish it off. It’s just kind of like a curse, but it is what it is. I’m super proud of the team, anyways. We’ll just focus on the race. If you don’t get the pole, [it’s] pretty easy to just switch back to race mode.”
With qualifications set for this year’s 110th running of the Indianapolis 500, Rosenqvist will attempt to join Simon Pagenaud (2019) and Takuma Sato (2020) as the only competitors to win the Indy 500 during an eighth start in the prestigious event. Should he achieve his first triumph for next Sunday’s main event, he would join Kenny Bräck and Marcus Ericsson as the only Swedish competitors to achieve the feat and deliver both the second Indy 500 triumph and INDYCAR victory for Meyer Shank Racing, a team that has not won since the 2021 ‘500’ event with Helio Castroneves.
The 2026 Indianapolis 500 for Felix Rosenqvist is scheduled to occur next Sunday, May 24. The event’s pre-race coverage will air at 10 a.m. ET on FOX before the drop of the green flag will occur at 12:30 p.m. ET on FOX.
