Bobby Travis · NASCAR/IndyCar-Korrespondent
On the Laguna Seca road course, qualifying came down to hundredths of a second, while the battle for second place in the standings was already in full swing further back in the field.
Scott McLaughlin secured pole position for the final race of the 2026 INDYCAR season on Saturday at the Mission Grand Prix of Monterey. Driving the Team Penske Chevrolet, he posted a 1:09.1363 in the final Fast Six session at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, leaving already-crowned champion Álex Palou just 0.018 seconds behind. For McLaughlin, it was redemption after a turbulent second practice session: according to reports, he briefly went through the gravel and had to have his undercarriage repaired before setting the best time in FP2 himself.
Fast Six: McLaughlin keeps his cool
The day's final elimination round was incredibly tight. McLaughlin and Palou were separated by less than two hundredths at the end, a margin that on the 3.6-kilometer course with its Corkscrew and high-speed corner combinations could hardly have been any smaller. Felix Rosenqvist completed the front row in third in the Meyer-Shank car, confirming his strong form from both practice sessions, where he had finished second each time.
For Palou himself, the starting position carries little sporting weight. The title has been secure for weeks, his fifth overall and fourth in a row. Yet the fact that he fought for the pole down to the last tenth shows that at Ganassi, nobody eases up even in a decided championship battle.
Rossi impresses, Malukas with a surprise slip in the final segment
Alexander Rossi drove the ECR Chevrolet to fourth place with a 1:09.3247 and secured a safe spot in the Fast Six. Christian Lundgaard locked up fifth place in the Arrow McLaren, also making the Fast Six, but with a significant gap of over a second to the top.
David Malukas rounded out the six-car group in sixth place, though his lap time of 1:12.8461 was well off the pace of the rest of the final session. That leaves him as the last qualifier for the Fast Six, a starting position that doesn't reflect the pace Team Penske has shown all weekend.
Starting grid and the open battle for second place in the championship
While the pole battle dominated up front, it's worth looking at the starting positions of the three drivers still fighting for second in the standings. Lundgaard heads into the race as fifth with the best starting position of the three, Kyle Kirkwood qualified in the Andretti Global car from the second qualifying round to seventh place, while Pato O'Ward failed to advance past the first round and starts only from 13th.
For O'Ward, Sunday means a long climb through increasingly tight midfield traffic over 95 laps and 212.61 miles, while Lundgaard could maintain control of his direct battle with Kirkwood from the second starting row. How much the grid order actually impacts the championship standings behind the long-since-crowned Palou will only become clear Sunday afternoon in Monterey when the season finale starts at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time (11:30 a.m. local time in California) and provides the answers.
