Newgarden and Palou take pole positions in Iowa

The only meeting offering two races this season, the Iowa Speedway also has its own qualifying system, with two flying laps, as on every oval except the Indy 500. But whereas usually, it is the average of the two laps that determines the position on the starting grid, this weekend the times on the first lap are used to determine the grid for the first race (this Saturday at 23:20 p.m. French time) and the second laps are used to determine the grid for race 2 (19:20 p.m. this Sunday).

In this little game, Josef Newgarden will start from pole position this Saturday evening, ahead of Conor Daly (Juncos Hollinger Racing), who is always very fast on small ovals. The Team Penske driver qualified in fourth position for the second round of the weekend. Poleman for this second race, Palou will also start fourth in the other event of the weekend, a surprising mirror effect between the two fastest drivers this Saturday in qualifying.

Second in the championship, Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti) will have his work cut out for him, starting from eighteenth position tonight and twenty-first this Sunday. Imperial on street tracks, the Andretti machines are having more difficulty this weekend, with Marcus Ericsson's fourteenth place in Race 2 being their best result in qualifying.

For Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske), a difficult season suffered another setback, as the New Zealander crashed on his first lap. After hitting the wall at Turn 1, he will have to start last in both races this weekend, having claimed his first oval race victory at this same Iowa Speedway in 2024.

OH NO! 🫣

Scott McLaughlin SPINS in qualifying, making hard contact with the wall. pic.twitter.com/0Wg7okTe0C

—NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) July 12, 2025

Iowa – Race 1
Qualifying results

Iowa – Race 2
Qualifying results

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