Palou and Penske set pace in 1st stage of Indy 500 qualifying. Andretti in danger of missing race

INDIANAPOLIS — Three familiar faces were at the top of the Indianapolis 500 qualifying board after the first round of time trials, with two-time defending IndyCar series champion Alex Palou holding the provisional pole.

Palou, winner of four of the first five races this season, qualified at 233.043 mph in a Honda-powered entry Saturday to top the Team Penske drivers of Scott McLaughlin and two-time defending Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden.

“It was an amazing day for us,” Palou said. “In practice, we were not able to finish a full qualifying run. It was tough conditions. But we had a ton of speed in the car.”

McLaughlin went 233.013 and Newgarden was third at 233.004 in Chevrolets. A year ago, all three Penske cars swept the front row at the Indianapolis 500, and Newgarden used a last-lap pass to put himself in position to become the first driver to win “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” three consecutive years in next Sunday’s race.

That trio took the rest of the day off after their initial qualifying runs. It was a far more stressful session for some other top stars, including Marco Andretti, who failed to lock himself into the field of 33 on the first day of qualifying.

Andretti now will have to prepare for a Sunday shootout against Marcus Armstrong — who crashed in morning practice but got a backup on track as the minutes ticked down on Saturday’s session — Rinus VeeKay and rookie Jacob Abel.

One of the four will not make the field for “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” on May 25.

“We just need to do four solid (laps Sunday), and we should be OK,” Andretti said. “But just even running tomorrow is a bummer. We have speed problems. I’ve seen it across the garage with big teams. It’s just how it is. I drew that straw this year.”

The famed Andretti family has won the Indianapolis 500 only once — a 1969 win by Mario Andretti — and the struggles his sons, nephew and grandson have gone through at the speedway are referred to as “The Andretti Curse.”

Armstrong said, in addition to the car preparation Meyer Shank Racing had to do, the New Zealand native also had to go through IndyCar’s concussion protocol to even be cleared to race.

Their struggles ultimately benefited Graham Rahal, who was bumped from the field in 2023 but battled all day to finally grab the 30th and final guaranteed spot in Saturday’s session. He had to sit inside his car and wait as Andretti and VeeKay made desperate final runs that could have knocked Rahal out of the field.

Instead, they fell short, and Rahal breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Two of the guys that ran there at the end, Marco and VeeKay, are two of the guys I respect the most around here. Both guys have been extremely fast, extremely talented at this place, and so you just never know,” Rahal said. “I think we improved our car. This day did not start out well. But we found a lot and I man, that beer is going to taste good tonight.”

The Saturday qualifying session decided the fast 12 who will run again Sunday to set the first four rows and crown the pole-winner. Drivers who qualified in spots 13 through 30 locked in their positions, but the slowest four cars go into a last-chance shootout Sunday to determine the final three spots. One driver will not make the field.

The 12 drivers who will try for the pole Sunday are Palou, McLaughlin, Newgarden, Pato O’Ward, Scott Dixon, rookie Robert Shwartzman, David Malukas, Felix Rosenqvist, Takuma Sato, Will Power, Marcus Ericsson and Christian Lundgaard.