Written by Jake O'Callaghan
IndyCar took to the Nashville Superspeedway for the first time in 16 years for the season finale. Alex Palou goes into this weekend 33 points ahead of second-place Will Power. What happened in this qualifying session would massively impact the complexion of the championship battle in Sunday’s race.
The talk of the paddock going into qualifying was a massive bump in turns three and four that caught multiple drivers out in practice. Due to that bump, three Indy NXT drivers had incidents in their practice session and in IndyCar, Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel had a massive crash in first practice that left his car destroyed.
Qualifying session
Nolan Siegel would not make qualifying due to damage sustained in the previously-mentioned practice crash. He will start at the back of the pack for tomorrow’s race.
First to run in the final qualifying session of the year was Dale Coyne Racing’s Jack Harvey. His first lap was solid and he marginally improved on his second lap, setting an average of 195mph.
Harvey’s teammate Katherine Legge was next. Her laps were quite far off Harvey’s as her car was not handling very well. She set an average in the 193mph range.
Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyffin Simpson set out in pursuit of a good result to stake his claim for that seat next year. The Caymanian driver was immediately faster than the Dale Coyne cars and set an average in the 197mph bracket whilst managing to improve his speed on lap two.
Christian Rasmussen was the first Ed Carpenter car to run. He is under pressure to get his car in the illustrious leader’s circle and earn his team an extra one-million dollar bonus. He had great speed from the get-go, and could take the car flat with ease around the entire lap. His speed of 199mph was a very novel effort. Concerningly, after he pulled back into the pits the rear of his car caught fire and the team had to scramble to remove the engine cover before extinguishing it. A team engineer was heard saying that it was an oil fire.
AJ Foyt Racing’s Sting Ray Robb is in that battle with Rasmussen for the leader’s circle. He is also vying to prove he deserves a seat in IndyCar next year following confirmation this week that he was dropped from the team. Robb set an eye-catching 200mph first lap, but tragically he lost power on his second lap and lost the entire run.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan started their qualifying session with Brazil’s Pietro Fittipaldi. This team has struggled massively on ovals this season and showed underwhelming speed in practice. Fittipaldi was the fastest of the three cars on his team in practice and set a decent speed of 198mph.
Next was Meyer Shank Racing’s David Malukas. The Lithuanian-American has shown great speed on ovals this year and was looking to bookend his time at Meyer Shank with another impressive performance. His average of 200mph put him provisionally top of the standings.
Juncos Hollinger Racing’s Conor Daly looked to continue the great momentum from the last weekend in Milwaukee where he earned the team their first-ever podium finish. He is known as a dependable oval racer and he set a great run of 200mph, just behind Malukas in the standings.
Graham Rahal was looking to improve on his speed shown in practice. He languished near the bottom of the timings for much of the morning session. That lack of speed unfortunately carried into qualifying. His car struggled massively with understeer in the corners and drag in the straights and was only able to set a speed of 196mph. “The car just doesn’t really pull” said the Ohio native over the radio.
Juncos Hollinger’s other driver Romain Grosjean was next. His team made a big gamble in strategy and fitted his car with the harder compound primary tyre. He was just shy of teammate Daly with a 199mph run.
Chip Ganassi Racing driver and rookie of the year Linus Lundqvist has somewhat struggled on ovals this year. His car appeared to be a bit twitchy on his laps but it didn’t hamper his speed much as he logged a 200mph run.
Marcus Armstrong has his practice session cut short with a clutch issue, a tough deal for a driver who has very little experience on ovals. However, the Chip Ganassi driver was undeterred by his relative inexperience, and put in a solid 199mph run, just behind teammate Lundqvist.
Ed Carpenter Racing’s other driver Rinus VeeKay was next up. He struggled running over that now-infamous bump in turns three and four, his car relatively non compliant in that part of the track. He set a decent 199mph average despite this, just ahead of teammate Rasmussen.
Andretti Global’s first runner was the 2022 Indy 500 champion Marcus Ericsson. His car struggled on balance and he was busy changing the setup throughout his run, chasing speed that wasn’t quite there. He only managed a 198mph run.
Next was Ericsson’s fellow Swede Felix Rosenqvist, the second Meyer Shank driver to run. Rosenqvist has been solid in qualifying this year, though he has struggled slightly more on ovals than on road courses. He went top of the timings with an impressive speed of 200mph, only the fourth driver to break the 200mph barrier up to that point.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s final driver to run was Christian Lundgaard. He continued his team’s trend of abysmal car balance and speed. A 195mph average left him second last of completed runs at the time.
Next was AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci. He is newly-confirmed with the team for 2025 and is coming off a recent pole position a few weeks ago in Portland. He aimed to continue that great momentum in Nashville. He is always solid on ovals and today was no different. A 200mph speed put him a provisional second, just behind Rosenqvist.
Josef Newgarden stalled his car whilst exiting the pits but his team managed to quickly refire him and he eventually left the pits without issue. The Nashville native aimed for a great starting spot at his home race. Team Penske has been great on ovals for years. His speed was a massive 201mph. That run left him almost 1mph faster than every other car at the time.
Alexander Rossi will be starting his last race for Arrow McLaren this weekend and is looking to raise eyebrows as he is job hunting for next year. He has a grid penalty hanging over his head but looked to minimise that damage. He had a huge moment over the bump on lap one, only barely managing to save the car from hitting the wall. He set a run of 197mph which was good considering the circumstances of his run. “I don’t know why that’s happened to two of our cars,” said the California driver.
Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood showed an unexpected amount of speed in his run. He beat Newgarden with a fantastic average of 201mph, going top of the timings by 0.2mph.
Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward was next to run. He has some momentum coming into this weekend after a win in Milwaukee and having recently been confirmed to run in this year’s FP1 of the Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix for McLaren. That momentum didn’t materialise here as he only managed a seventh at the time with a 200mph run.
Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon had good balance in his car but struggled with outright pace. A speed of 199mph left him only tenth as it stood.
Andretti Global’s Colton Herta had a difficult weekend in Milwaukee and with an inconsistent season overall, he is looking to go into the winter break with a positive final race. He had a small moment over the bump on lap two and struggled with his gearbox across the run, a 200mph average left him only ninth.
Scott McLaughlin has an outside chance to win the championship, though that would need a win whilst rivals Power and Palou would have to encounter massive issues. He has an engine penalty hanging over his head and just needed a solid run. Unfortunately, his car just did not have good balance and he had poor pace across the run. A 200mph speed left him eighth provisionally.
McLaughin’s Team Penske teammate Will Power has a much better chance of winning the championship. He needed a good run to start high for the most important race of the season. A speed of 200mph left him in fourth place.
Championship leader Alex Palou has a nine-place grid penalty for the race, but if he were to set the fastest run he would win one bonus point and make his title defence that little bit easier. He did not have that speed ultimately, a speed of 199mph paired with his penalty means he will start 24th tomorrow whilst his championship rival will start fourth. This also meant that Andretti's Kyle Kirkwood would take a somewhat-unexpected pole position.
For Power to win the championship tomorrow he would need to finish on the podium whilst Palou would need to finish outside the top ten. This result sets up what will be a very intense finale in Nashville.
IndyCar Music City Grand Prix qualifying results
Kyle Kirkwood
Josef Newgarden
Felix Rosenqvist
Will Power
Santino Ferrucci
David Malukas
Conor Daly
Pato O'Ward
Scott McLaughlin*
Linus Lundqvist
Colton Herta
Rinus VeeKay
Scott Dixon
Marcus Armstrong
Alex Palou*
Romain Grosjean
Christian Rasmussen
Marcus Ericsson
Pietro Fittipaldi
Alexander Rossi*
Kyffin Simpson
Graham Rahal
Jack Harvey
Christian Lundgaard
Katherine Legge
Sting Ray Robb
Nolan Siegel*
*subject to a nine-place grid penalty
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