IndyCar News: Palou beats O’Ward for pole at Laguna Seca

Runaway championship points leader Alex Palou (pictured) turned a lap of 1m08.3413s in his #10 DHL Honda to win the pole position for the 2025 Java House Grand Prix at Monterey IndyCar race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

Palou has won seven races already this season, and he is looking to lock up his 4th NTT IndyCar title.  Today was his fifth pole of 2025 and the eleventh of his IndyCar career.

“But we didn’t really know what was going to happen today. I just didn’t know what the track conditions were going to be like. We made some changes to the car, and we’ve kept them. We trusted that they were going to be in the right direction.”

“Yeah, super happy that we got to fight for pole, we got the pole, and starting on the best spot tomorrow.”

“Today or this weekend, it just feels like the track lost a ton of grip. There are different patches in Turns 2 and 3, and just low speed in general, which — it’s honestly good. It’s still incredibly fast, and it’s still a really cool track, but it’s making it more challenging. I think it’s going to open up different lines in the race, and hopefully we’re going to see lots of overtakes. ”

Second place in the standings and the winner last week in Toronto,  Pato O’Ward, did not have enough to beat Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou and came up 0.2867 seconds behind in second.

“Alex (Palou) and I are the only two that can win the championship now. And I’m the one that’s chasing down pretty hard. Much rather be next to each other than not, so usually if you’re next to him, it means that you’ve been qualifying well because he seems to be the master this year at that, and we seem to be a little bit more of a stranger to the Fast Six.”

“Yeah, our Fast Six record this year is pretty good. We’ve only got two and we’ve got a pole and a second. So we’ll see what we can continue knocking off this year.”

“Yeah, I didn’t have three-tenths to get Alex. We just maximized what we had, and like I said, it was a somewhat scrappy qualifying for me, so I was just happy that we were getting the transfers through and then were able to put down a pretty good clean lap in Q3.”

Colton Herta was third in the #26 Andretti Global Honda, 0.54s behind the DHL Honda.

“It is OK.  It was just a little too sloppy for me.  Congrats to Alex.  That was a pretty fast lap.”

“I believe we have something for Alex (Palou)  in the race.  I will know more after the practice in a few hours.”

Josef Newgarden was 4th in the #2 Penske Chevy, 1.32s behind Palou.

“That was a big step forward for the team.  They were working here all night after my mistake yesterday.  To get to the Fast 6 is a big gain for our team.”

Newgarden’s Penske teammate Will Power rounded out the top-5, 1.66s behind the Ganassi ace.

2025 Java House GP of Monterey Qualifying Results

Lucille Dust reporting live from Laguna Seca