Winners and losers in IndyCar qualifying for the Grand Prix of St. Pete

Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin took pole position for IndyCar’s season opener in Florida, his first pole position at the track since 2022 — where he went on to win.

These are our winners and losers in IndyCar qualifying for the 2025 Grand Prix of St. Pete.

Winners and losers in IndyCar qualifying for the Grand Prix of St. Pete

Winner: Scott McLaughlin

Heading into his sixth year of IndyCar competition, Scott McLaughlin is keen on making a statement — and that means winning the IndyCar championship.

The former Australian Supercars racer made the move to America back in 2020, and each year since, he’s taken his No. 3 Penske Chevrolet to new heights in pursuit of first pole positions, then race wins, and now, he’ll be hoping to make things official with a championship victory and/or an Indy 500 win.

He’ll have a great shot starting from pole position. The last time he started first on this track, he went on to take a comprehensive victory — and he’ll be hoping to replicate the same tomorrow.

Loser: Will Power

Will Power didn’t have much to celebrate on his 44th birthday, as his qualifying session was something of a disaster.

Power has a lot riding on his early season performance this year. He’s the only of the three Team Penske drivers without a contract extension carrying him into the future, with team boss Tim Cindric stating that negotiations won’t take place until after the Indianapolis 500.

That’s only six races away, which means Power needs to perform right out of the gate. He signed with Fernando Alonso’s A14 Management, to be directly managed by the company’s North American representative Oriol Servia.

But if that management company has caused a change, we haven’t seen it yet. Power was the only Penske driver to fail to advance into the second round of qualifying. He’ll start the race from 13th — not the end of the world, but certainly not preferred.

Winner: Colton Herta

Is Colton Herta in the running for a seat at Cadillac in Formula 1? His name has certainly been tossed around on the regular, but there’s just one problem: He’s not quite Super License eligible.

Herta took second in the IndyCar championship in 2024, but to get those coveted super license points, he’s going to need to have an even better year in 2025. That means he’ll need to tame the bad luck that tends to leave him struggling, while also finding additional pace.

Herta was quick in qualifying at St. Pete but was pipped from pole position by McLaughlin; still, a second-place start is a great step forward for the American driver.

Loser: Pato O’Ward

If you had picked Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward as one of the favorites heading into the 2025 IndyCar season, you wouldn’t be alone: Hopes are high that the driver from Mexico will finally finish refining his driving to take either a championship, an Indy 500 victory — or maybe both.

Those hopes aren’t off to a particularly great start in St. Pete, with O’Ward unable to progress out of the first round of qualifying. Speaking to FOX when he got out of the car, he stated that he was unable to “switch on” the green tires — or, the alternate tires that most other drivers found to be the quickest. For most, the green tires switched on instantly, ready to set one flying lap before they began to fall off.

That O’Ward was unable to make those tires work for him indicates that there could be something wrong with the No. 5 Chevrolet, though the team could simply be hedging its bets on its race pace. Whatever the case, it’ll be something of a challenge for O’Ward to head to the front from 23rd.

More on IndyCar:

? Explained: The chaotic history of the IndyCar split and reunification

? Leaders Circle: The IndyCar championship you may not know about

Winner: Meyer Shank Racing

Only one team had multiple cars in the Firestone Fast Six, which is IndyCar’s final round of qualifying: Meyer Shank Racing. The Honda team will lock out the second row of the grid, with Felix Rosenqvist starting third alongside new teammate Marcus Armstrong.

As far as full-time IndyCar operations go, MSR is on the newer side; it’s clocked an Indy 500 win with Helio Castroneves, which has bolstered the team’s finances ever since — but it’s been trying to find its purpose ever since.

In 2024, MSR had something of a similar start to the season, where the team looked quick but soon fell off the pace. But it’s certainly better to kick things off well than have to climb out of a hole.

Loser: The newbies

It was a tough session for IndyCar’s three rookie drivers, as well as for fledgling team Prema Racing.

Indy NXT graduate Louis Foster was the fastest of the rookies, and he’ll only be starting in 16th. Robert Shwartzman will start from 18th, while Jacob Abel will start 25th. And while Callum Ilott isn’t a new driver, he is  racing for the new Prema team — and he’s starting from 27th, the very bottom of the grid.

The IndyCar Series doesn’t always get enough credit for being such a competitive form of motorsport, but this absolutely highlights those challenges for the drivers who aren’t familiar with the sport.

Further, Prema has some work to do; the team struggled with radio issues all weekend long.

Winner: Firestone’s alternate tires

In 2024, the gap in performance between Firestone’s alternate and primary race tires wasn’t very wide; the alternate ‘green’ tire is made of guayule, a rubber-like substance that naturally occurs in the deserts of the United States, and it proved to be tough in 2024.

Coming into 2025, IndyCar asked Firestone to alter its alternate compound in such a way that there would be a bigger gap in performance between the two tires. And based on what we’ve seen so far in St. Pete, the rubbermaker delivered.

Practice experimentation proved that the green tires came up to speed quickly, with Kyle Kirkwood describing them as feeling as if they’d had tire warmers on.

The only downside? The tires were quick for about one lap, and were almost completely useless by lap four.

The tire fall-off kept things interesting in qualifying, as drivers needed to be perfect on their first lap lest they completely sacrifice their speed to tire degradation. It might be more of a frustration in the race, but for quali, the guayule tires are fascinating.

Loser: FOX’s graphics package

What standards are reasonable to hold FOX to in its first IndyCar weekend? I’ve been asking myself this question all weekend, generally accompanied by pursed lips and a somewhat frustrated sigh.

It may be FOX’s first weekend with IndyCar, but the broadcaster has had plenty of experience with NASCAR. I feel like my expectations weren’t exactly high — I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece — but I certainly was hoping that the broadcast would actually be functional. That hasn’t been the case this weekend, but I still reserved judgement until qualifying.

Unfortunately, in the session of the weekend where rapid, accurate information is critical, the translation of timing and scoring to graphics failed regularly. Fast laps weren’t instantly logged on the ticker, leaving the commentators to make up the gap in information.

Further, there was no indication which tires the drivers were using, or how quick they were in certain sectors.

It’s a rough start and earns FOX a slot on the loser list, but it’s by no means the end of the world, and there are still several races remaining in the build-up to the Indy 500, where millions of eyes will be on the broadcast.

Read next: Explained: How IndyCar drivers and teams get their race numbers