Qualifying Report: Java House Grand Prix of Monterey

MONTEREY, Calif. (July 26, 2025) -- David Malukas advanced to his second Firestone Fast 6 of the season at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca Saturday afternoon. He will start sixth in the No. 4 Clarience Technologies Chevrolet after posting a lap time of 1 minute, 10.1811 seconds.

It was the fourth time that Malukas posted a top-6 result; the other two times came on the ovals at Worldwide Technology Raceway (started fourth), and more recently at Iowa Speedway where he qualified third. It is his eighth top-10 start in 13 events.

The morning practice session around the 11-turn, 2.238-mile road course was cancelled due to fog so teams had to rely on information gleaned from yesterday afternoon's session. With the same conditions expected for tomorrow morning, the warmup is set to take place later this afternoon.

Malukas debriefs with his race engineer James Schnabel after qualifying.

“So really good qualifying and happy to make it back to the Fast Six," said Malukas. "Feels good to be back up here. Obviously, it was a little bit of an unknown with no practice 2 so we did two reds for Q-1 and obviously had nothing at the end there in the Fast Six. But very happy for the guys; we managed to find a really good car to make us be right there at the end. Obviously, Palou and Pato from practice 1 kind of had four or five tenths on the rest of the field from the beginning. So, it was just more trying to be around them and I think we capitalized on that, and we're right there. Made a little mistake on our lap for Q-3, but overall, just very happy with how things are. So now we lock in and go for warm up and the race.”

Posting a lap time of 1 minute, 9.4663 seconds, Santino Ferrucci will start 20th alongside Scott Dixon in the No. 14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet.

Current NTT INDYCAR Series points leader Alex Palou claimed his fifth NTT P1 Award with a sizzling lap of 1 minute, 8.3413 seconds. Last week's winner Pato O'Ward qualified second with a lap time of 1 minute, 8.6280 seconds. Rounding out the Firestone Fast Six were Colton Herta, Josef

Newgarden, Will Power and Malukas.

The Java House Grand Prix of Monterey will be broadcast by FOX Sunday afternoon starting at 3 p.m. ET.