Qualifying Report: Indianapolis 500 - Round 2

INDIANAPOLIS (May 18, 2025) -- The run for the Indianapolis 500 pole position started off with the Fast 12 round of qualifying this afternoon at Indianapolis Motor Speedway under partly sunny skies.

The drivers in the Fast 12 got one qualifying attempt to make it into the Firestone Fast 6.

Driving the No. 4 Clarience Technologies Chevrolet, David Malukas posted an average speed of 231.599mph which was the seventh quickest of the nine qualifiers who took time. It is his best starting position for the Indy 500 to date. Starting inside Row 3, Malukas will have row mates Christian Lundgaard and Marcus Ericsson, the 2022 Indy 500 winner. Team owner A.J. Foyt won his first Indy 500 starting seventh in 1961.

 "The day was shorter than we were expecting," Malukas said.

"We ended up coming out with a Fast 12; couldn't make it to the Fast Six so P7 in the end, we just played a little bit too safe on the downforce side from all things considered. Very, very happy with the result either way. P7 is a great spot, row three, to start for the race. A really good two days (of qualifying), really good couple weeks so far from the team, and a really good run so far leading up for the 500, so very happy. The car was incredible. We had a really good chance, I think, to go for it at the end there to make it to the Fast Six. But better to be safe than sorry."

Team Penske had a rough day starting with the early afternoon practice when Scott McLaughlin lost control heading into Turn 1 and crashed heavily into the wall. He escaped uninjured, but the team could not repair the car in time for the Fast 12. His teammates' cars, driven by Will Power and Josef Newgarden, were withdrawn after they failed a pre-qualifying inspection. McLaughlin, Newgarden and Power will start in row 4 in that order.

The biggest shock of the day was the run for the pole which was won by rookie Robert Schwartzman, of Tel Aviv, Israel and his rookie IndyCar team Prema form Italy. Schwartzman posted a four-lap average speed of 232.790mph in his No. 83 Prema Chevrolet. The last time a rookie won the pole was in 1983 when Teo Fabi won it with the No. 33 Skoal Bandit March posting an average speed of 207.395mph.

Takuma Sato will start second for his best ever start in the 500 and will be flanked by Pato O'Ward. Rounding out the Fast 6 were Scott Dixon, Felix Rosenqvist and reigning NTT INDYCAR Series champion Alex Palou.

Santino Ferrucci, who will start 17th in the No. 14 Homes For Our Troops Chevrolet, was presented a check for $5,000 by the Firestone Firehawk to be donated to Homes For Our Troops as the fund-raising campaign is just past the halfway point in May. ABC Supply, which will match the first $1M donated, has set $4 Million as its target goal for the campaign, which included donating the No. 14 car livery to feature HFOTUSA.org, the Homes For Our Troops website. Last year the campaign raised a whopping $5 Million dollars far-exceeding its $4M goal.

Homes For Our Troops rebuilds homes and lives for severely injured Veterans and their families. Over the past three Month of May Indy 500 campaigns, over $10 Million has been raised for Homes For Our Troops where nearly 90 cents of every dollar goes directly to program services for Veterans. Donations can be made at HFOTUSA.ORG/DONATE.

Race Teams will practice race setups tomorrow for two hours and then tear down their cars, and replace their engines with "race" engines built specifically for the 500. On Friday, aka "Carb Day" (nicknamed for Carburetion Day when racing engines used to have carburetors), teams will have a final practice with their newly installed race engines.

The 109th Running of the Indianapolis 500 takes place next Sunday, May 25th. FOX kicks off their coverage with a two-hour pre-race show starting at 10 a.m. ET which will be followed by the race broadcast starting at 12 noon E.T.