IndyCar Arlington Notebook: Marcus Ericsson Claims Career-First IndyCar Pole in Texas

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Ericsson Claims Career-First IndyCar Pole in TexasMichael L. Levitt - Getty Images

NTT IndyCar Series driver Marcus Armstrong is a patient man.

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But he said Saturday he was starting at the end of 2025 to lose his confidence: “I didn’t recognize myself and I didn’t drive with confidence. I didn’t drive aggressive. I was just not myself.”

He finally earned his first IndyCar pole position, which had eluded him since 2013, and will lead the field for Sunday’s inaugural Java House Grand Prix of Arlington.

Ericsson covered the 2.73-mile, 14-turn street course in the North Texas Metroplex city’s Entertainment District in 1 minute, 34.3562 seconds with a best lap of 104.158 mph. Just behind him on the circuit, against an extraordinary backdrop that showcases the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium and the Texas Rangers’ Global Life Field, was Alex Palou (1:34.8180, 103.651).

Because the Dallas-Fort Worth weather forecast for Sunday calls for high winds, the event has been moved up. TV coverage will start with pre-race programming starting at 10:30 a.m. CT on FOX. The green flag will wave at 11:17 a.m. CT.

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The strategy buzz Friday was that the slowest qualifier for the newly readjusted Firestone Fast Six actually had the best chance to gain the pole because the car, tires, and brakes, would be warmed up while the other five cooled their heels and their cars. So, was Ericsson the lucky beneficiary?

“Tough to say,” Palou guessed. “But it didn’t help [me]. There was more than 20 minutes between my last lap in Fast 12 until my outlap in Fast Six. So only having an outlap just doesn’t allow you to warm up the brakes or the tires or anything. So, I was slower than what I did on all tires on the previous sessions. I think tire time made a difference. Having said that, I don’t know if I would have matched his top lap. It was pretty fast. So I’m happy with the P2, honestly. I wish that we had at least one lap to warm up, but it’s the same for everybody.”

Ericsson, at least this weekend, is a fan of the Fast Six single-car qualifying format. “I didn’t have much time to sit and think about it. It was just quick debrief with the engineers and then off you go,” he said. “So I don’t know if it helped me or not. I was very focused on just doing my lap and then it’s a bit more pressure in a situation like this where you’re sort of on your own and you get one shot at it. But I always liked that sort of pressure cooker. That’s what I like with the 500 and qualifying there and racing into 500 is always when the pressure is high, I feel like I really perform my best and I think that helped me today.”

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He said what got him back on the right track during the offseason was taking “a lot of things what I could learn from last year and be working on that and really the mindset of going racing. as well. I sort of tried to push myself to be in the right kind of state of mind when I go to the racetrack, and I feel like that's been paying off this year. So I don’t know if there’s one specific thing, but it’s just, again, it comes down for me to hard work and preparation and it gives confidence knowing that you’re putting a ton of work in and off season. If you work really hard on your physical side, mental side, with the team, if you’re not driving different things, like you really feeling yourself—I put in the work, I’m going to be stronger, I’m going to be better.”

Palou and Ericsson were teammates four years ago at Chip Ganassi Racing, and Palou said, “I have a great friendship with him, and I think he deserves it. He’s a really good driver, so happy to see him there—hopefully not tomorrow, but happy to see him there today.”

Standings leader Josef Newgarden—who switched to a back-up car after a mishap in practice—anticipated that “there’ll be some learning” on this street course that features several different kinds of racing surfaces. “Don’t be surprised if some things need to be adjusted. That’s natural when you have a new event. Hopefully people aren’t too hard on us for maybe the small shortcomings or adjustments that are needed. But you can tell the effort and work that went into it.”

Starting in Row 2 will be Pato O’Ward (who said, “This place really is a joy to drive”) on the inside and Will Power (who rebounded from an unavoidable wreck in practice) next to him. Behind them will be the Meyer Shank duo of Felix Rosenqvist and Marcus Armtsrong.

Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward ate what?!

It’s a common accusation that race-car drivers are a bit crazy for doing what they do, but Pato O’Ward might have reinforced that this weekend. “I ate a scorpion,” he said.

“I had an event in Mexico [in the offseason], and they had a scorpion on a piece of lettuce. They said, ‘You’ve got to have this,’ and I was like, ‘OK.’ It did not sting. I can’t say the taste has been the best I’ve ever had,” he said.

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People told him munching on the scorpion would bring him good luck. He said, “They said, ‘You’re going to have the best year of your life.’ And I said, ‘All right – I’m into that.’”

Maybe he’s onto something. So far he has two top-five finishes.

Saturday practice has plenty of goofy drama

Juncos Hollinger’s Rinus VeeKay said Friday that he was “excited for whatever crazy stuff’s going to happen.”

He had to wait only 24 hours. Plenty of “crazy stuff” happened Saturday morning in practice and in the opening segments of qualifying. Scott Dixon spun without hitting the wall and was trying to maneuver his car so he could get running again. But he was in a blind spot, and the seemingly snake-bitten Will Power rounded the turn and suddenly encountered Dixon’s Honda. He had absolutely no warning and plowed into the right rear of Dixon’s car. Neither was hurt. Dixon quipped, “At least he didn’t flip me off.”

Josef Newgarden also got loose, overcorrected, and veered into the wall in what seemed like slow motion, doing enough damage to the tub and front suspension of his PPG-sponsored entry to force him into a back-up car (which happened to be his Phoenix-winning, XPEL-branded car).

But he said the incident was “really not a big deal from a safety or a performance standpoint. It’s very funny what happened. You know, it’s kind of like the most comical wreck I think I’ve ever had. I think I hit the wall at three miles per hour. So, to have a chassis written off from that is very funny to me. Obviously, the team doesn’t want to go through this, but this is where they thrive. I never question getting in a Team Penske car.

“It’s just funny to me that we’ve got this Frankenstein car now. If this thing’s fast, I think we should change the PPG to this (XPEL colors) personally. So, I don’t want to speak too soon. Maybe we’re not going to be very good, but the team does a great job. I always feel good with team Penske, so we’ll be good in the PPG car.”

The biggest “Oh-my-gosh” moment of the day came in practice, when the red flag came out because three catering-crew representatives unknowingly sauntered out onto a hot track, one pushing a food cart, just as the first group of drivers left the pits. IndyCar Race Control alerted about the “serious breach of security.” Thankfully, drivers had not gotten up to speed, and no one was injured.

In qualifying, Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske)—in his words—“turned a little early,” clipped the inside wall, and triggered a red flag. He will start from the 25th and last position Sunday. “I’ve done it to myself,” McLaughlin said. “Frustrated for the guys. They gave me a good car. They’re going to work pretty hard to get this thing fixed.”

Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti Global) eliminated himself from the Fast 12 by committing what he called a “massive mental error.”

Rinus VeeKay reaches milestone

As Rinus VeeKay approaches his 100th IndyCar start Sunday, he said, “It doesn’t feel like 100. Very excited to start this one off, especially at a venue like this one.”

His first IndyCar race was the 2019 Genesys 300 up the highway at Texas Motor Speedway. Ironically, in that debut, VeeKay crashed out on in the 38th lap, collecting Alex Palou. Just last Sunday at Phoenix, VeeKay made contact on Lap 21 with Palou, knocking him from the race and contributing to the current champion’s drop from first place to fifth in the standings.

Rinus Veekay.Sean Gardner - Getty Images

But VeeKay said Friday the wreck last weekend was a case of “maybe me being too eager. Whenever a hard moment happens, I always try to learn from it. This might be the little bit of experience I need to have greatness at the 500 [in May].”

(Likewise, Will Power, who tangled with Christian Rasmussen at Phoenix, said he has gotten over the incident and is looking forward to Sunday’s race. “Pity for both of us,” Power said, “We both could have done something better. But that’s racing, racing for a win. The good news is that we were incredibly fast.”)

Malukas understands better why Chevy supports racing

After visiting the General Motors Assembly Plant in Arlington, Texas, earlier in the week, David Malukas got an extraordinary look at what’s behind the bowtie he wears on his driver’s uniform.

Team Penske’s Malukas and Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel visited the General Motors Arlington Assembly plant Thursday, just south of the race course, across Texas Highway 180. The factory builds the Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, GMC Yukon, and Cadillac Escalade, producing about 1,300 vehicles a day. And Malukas was wowed by how he saw the more than 5,000 employees operate inside the 4.375-million-square-foot facility.

“It’s like a whole city in there. It’s insane,” Malukas said. “They have the cars on, like, a tram system above your head, going back and forth. It’s so well done, where [a vehicle] will come down and it needs to go through a production center and it and it goes back upon the tram. It was so cool. I was so lost.”

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