By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer

Felix Rosenqvist only has six races remaining with the No.60 team at Meyer Shank Racing and the Swede is starting the end-of-season run-in, with a pole at Portland International Raceway for Sunday’s OnlyBulls Grand Prix of Portland. 

The Indianapolis 500 winner’s lap of 58.4828 was good enough to best Alex Palou (58.5012) by a margin of 0.0184-of-a-second. The two Honda drivers also shared the front row in April’s Long Beach Grand Prix and Rosenqvist will look to convert this pole into his second victory of 2026. 

“It’s always nice when you beat him [Palou], even if it’s only qualifying,” Rosenqvist said. “You know you’re doing a good job when he’s P2 and you’re P1. Yeah, it makes me happy. You’re not happy when you have him in your mirrors, though. You have to be pretty perfect. Long Beach was a good example of that. Even if that day maybe we were a little quicker, he just never really has bad days. You just have to bring your A-game tomorrow, but yeah, we’ll try. I think we’re so far looking pretty good. Also this year I think we just got stronger in the races, as well. Hopefully we can translate that into something big tomorrow.” 

The defending race winner at Portland, Will Power, starts third for Sunday’s 110-lap contest and will be joined by his Andretti Global teammate, Marcus Ericsson, in the second row. Starting fifth is Rinus Veekay who is, once again, having a strong weekend, putting the No.76 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet near the top of the grid. 

Veekay was third in Friday afternoon’s practice session and comes into Portland, after testing there last week, with a  car that was quick right out of the trailer. 

“We tested here and starting in practice one, we were quick right away,” Veekay said. “We were third that session. I think we had to pace for Fast Six, definitely did, but it’s just hard to make it happen. You have to be perfect. Really fun, really good.  With this track being this finicky and everything being this close. Really, really good job by the Juncos Hollinger crew, and having AM/PM on the car this weekend is really cool.”

Kyffin Simpson was the final Honda to make the Firestone Fast Six, giving the manufacturer five out of six spots in the last round of qualifying. 

SEE: OnlyBulls Grand Prix of Portland Starting Grid

While Honda had a strong day at the top of the charts, Chevrolet left with only one car in the Top 10 (Veekay). David Malukas was the second highest Chevy driver in 12th (58.8690). While Malukas posted the 12th fastest lap on paper, the championship contender will start in 18th after serving a six-place grid penalty. 

Palou will have the upper-hand on his rivals for the title and look to grow the 83-point gap to Malukas. Kyle Kirkwood qualified seventh (58.8303) and Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard, who sits 104 points  adrift in fourth, will start last after hybrid issues in qualifying on Saturday. 

“Quite disappointed in how our day ended up, considering we seemed to have made progress overnight with our pace,” Lundgaard said. “My tire froze when we came in for the tire change midway through Q1, and when we fired up again, my hybrid didn’t work after that. I had to do what I could with the car for the remainder of the session, which obviously wasn’t much without the hybrid functioning. We’ll start from the back tomorrow, which may be tough on this track, but we’re up for the challenge.”

Track position will be key in Sunday’s race and just like the aforementioned Long Beach Grand Prix, the race could be won, or lost, in the pit road, just as Rosenqvist lost the win on the street course. Since the Sonsio Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course in May, cautions have become more prevalent in races, with drivers being caught out more often. For Rosenqvist, it will be a combination of luck and clean air to get the job done at PIR. 

“Since the whole Rossi-Rasmussen situation in Road America, Indy GP, when they changed the rules, you’re more exposed, right?,” Rosenqvist said. “If this was before that, you would probably just try to go along, try to control the race that way, which is historically, at least the last couple seasons, the way to do it, if you look at especially Alex. 

But yeah, I think now you have to play it a little bit differently, try to cover yourself more. I think luck is more of a factor in general, which I’m not a fan of. It’s been a bit of probably 50/50 in the field what drivers have been thinking about it. It is what it is. We probably have to cover ourselves more. Hopefully get clean air. That was always a key here in Portland.”