With another Texas pole, Felix Rosenqvist has chance to shake up Arrow McLaren's future

Sometimes, setbacks can breed success. It certainly seems to be the case for Felix Rosenqvist at Texas Motor Speedway, and we’ll see Sunday if the Arrow McLaren driver can turn his fourth career pole – and second consecutive at the 1.44-mile oval – into a long-awaited second IndyCar win.

“Arrow McLaren gave us a weapon today, and we were able to build upon last year,” Rosenqvist said on the Peacock broadcast after outlasting late qualifying runs from his teammates Alexander Rossi (who will start 3^rd Sunday) and Pato O’Ward (5^th), as well as five-time Texas winner Scott Dixon (2^nd).

What may very well have been Rosenqvist’s secret weapon Saturday was his disappointing start to the 2023 season on the streets of St. Pete. On March 5, Rosenqvist took a hip-check from Dixon in the opening corners of the 100-lap race that sent him into the wall and sparked a massive pileup that collected nearly one-third of the 27-car field. Rosenqvist’s No. 6 Chevy crew would get him back out of the garage to run a handful of laps before ultimately retiring 49 laps down in 19^th.

Similar to his start to the season a year ago at St. Pete (17^th), the finish left the Swedish driver qualifying in the front-half of the field for the second race of the season at Texas, as IndyCar has its field qualify for non-Indy 500 oval races in reverse order of the current point standings. Last year, Rosenqvist was qualifying 11^th in line in a 27-car field. Saturday, among a field of 28 cars, he was 10^th off the line.

Going against the grain: New Texas Motor Speedway president aims to be family-friendly for IndyCar

With the track and ambient temperatures heating up after an 8 a.m. initial practice, those starting early held a theoretical advantage as tires degrade far quicker across a two-lap qualifying session the higher the temperatures crept. From there, it was about taking advantage of the edge.

“I think we’ve always been good here, but this is a whole different confidence level than last year,” Rosenqvist said, referring to coming back to the track as the defending polesitter. “That was an amazing pole. I don’t think we could’ve done much better than what we had. A big thanks to everyone.”

A stat Rosenqvist may not want to hear? It’s been more than a decade – 15 IndyCar races at TMS – since the polesitter has won at Texas. Among those frustrating starts for former IndyCar polesitters at Texas, Rosenqvist slid through his pit stall during his second stop a year ago just past the 100-lap mark, having been running comfortably in the top-5 with teammate O’Ward. Rosenqvist then suffered a mechanical failure that ended his day in 21^st.

His rough start to his second campaign with Arrow McLaren soon put his ride in jeopardy. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown announced in 2021 that his IndyCar team planned to add a third full-time car for 2023 – a ride that just after the 2022 500 was confirmed to be for Rossi. A month later in mid-July last year, McLaren announced it had signed 2021 season champ Alex Palou, who that same day had had his team option for 2023 picked up by Chip Ganassi, to a multi-year deal. Though unsaid at the time, it was pretty well clear Arrow McLaren had attempted to sign Palou to take Rosenqvist’s ride – to which the Swedish driver responded by grabbing his lone podium of the year on the streets of Toronto.

“I think this weekend hopefully makes (Brown) doubt some things,” Rosenqvist told NBC post-race at Toronto. Around that same time, McLaren had already announced that Rosenqvist would return to the global racing team in some form in 2023 – either in Formula E or IndyCar – and that his ultimate destination would come down to how Brown’s game of chess played out.

In August, Rosenqvist made clear through a variety of public comments that his mind had changed – wherever he might end up, he wanted to stay in IndyCar, even if it meant parting ways with his home of two years. Brown later said that though Rosenqvist hadn’t signed any formal deal for the future, the two sides had come to terms on an agreement that the McLaren Racing CEO could’ve held his driver to, had he wanted to slot the driver into McLaren’s new Formula E team. Not one to want to hold onto an unhappy driver, but with a Sept. 30 deadline to decide whether to pick up Rosenqvist’s team option for a 2023 IndyCar ride, Brown watched from the sidelines as lawyers representing Palou and Ganassi settled their federal civil lawsuit in mediation days after the Sept. 11 season-finale.

The eventual outcome – Palou being allowed to test F1 cars for McLaren while completing the final year of his current contract with CGR in the No. 10 Honda in 2023 – meant Brown then triggered Rosenqvist’s option for the 2023 IndyCar season. Within the paddock, it’s left the widespread (though unconfirmed) assumption that Palou will be officially added to Arrow McLaren’s 2024 IndyCar roster.

Unless Brown were to add a fourth full-time car for next year, with O’Ward and Rossi signed to multi-year deals, Rosenqvist would end up losing his seat after three years.

Capitalizing on his start up-front Sunday, as well as adding another strong Month of May performance (he took 4^th in the 500 a year ago) to his resume will make that decision for Brown far more difficult.

Arrow McLaren, Ganassi, Penske crowd front of the grid

In his first of what may only be two oval starts with Chip Ganassi Racing his year, Takuma Sato will roll off 6^th Sunday, registering the second-fastest two-lap average among CGR’s four entries. Palou will start one row back in 7^th, and Marcus Ericsson, the winner of the St. Pete season-opener, qualified a disappointing 16^th after rolling off in the hottest temperatures of the session and suffering far more than O’Ward (5^th), Dixon (2^nd) and Rossi (3^rd).

More: Last year's failed IndyCar title fight has points leader Marcus Ericsson ready 2023

Among other contenders, Team Penske was paced in qualifying by last year’s race-winner, Josef Newgarden (4^th), followed by two-time Texas winner Will Power (8^th) and last year’s runner-up Scott McLaughlin (15^th). Andretti Autosport saw its four drivers just a hair back in 10^th (Colton Herta), 11^th (Romain Grosjean), 12^th (Devlin DeFrancesco) and 20^th (Kyle Kirkwood).

After crashing out on Lap 1 of his IndyCar debut in St. Pete, AJ Foyt Racing’s Benjamin Pedersen was the fastest rookie in qualifying, finishing 13^th.

Among those who struggled, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing will see its three cars all start near the back of the grid, similar to a year ago, in 24^th (Graham Rahal), 27^th (Christian Lundgaard) and 28^th (Jack Harvey). Ed Carpenter Racing’s trio was only marginally better, paced by Ed Carpenter (18^th) and followed by Conor Daly (25^th) and Rinus VeeKay (26^th). After both crashing out on Lap 1 in St. Pete, Meyer Shank Racing teammates Helio Castroneves (21^st) and Simon Pagenaud (22^nd) will also have a lot of ground to make up Sunday, made increasingly difficult after Castroneves’ No. 06 crew missed all of the final practice with a broken gearbox bearing and Pagenaud was docked the final 10 minutes after missing post-qualifying weigh-in.

Daly makes his best Danny Sullivan impression

Daly nearly gave his team on the No. 20 Chevy a long night’s work after the IndyCar veteran spun coming out of Turn 4 during an extra practice session Saturday afternoon reserved for drivers to run exclusively in the second and third lanes in the turns. The pair of 15-minute sessions, with half the grid participating in each, was meant to help lay down rubber high on the racetrack for Sunday’s race in hope of making the upper lanes grippier and allowing drivers to run two-wide and potentially pass in the corners.

The Ed Carpenter Racing driver was well up in the black-stained section of the track coming to the start-finish line when his rear came around, leading to a series of spins that took him into the infield. Lucky for he and his ECR crew, Daly avoided the wall – as well as Pedersen, Callum Ilott and Sato running close behind him. With the car settling facing forward at the start-finish line, Daly cycled back around into the pits, swapped out his now-ruined tires, and came back out on-track relatively unscathed.

“When we hit the bump exiting Turn 4, (the car) snapped really aggressively,” Daly said after practice was complete. “It’s not ideal, not great, but I do know my way around correcting a spin."

Andretti Autosport moves Bryan Herta off son's radio

As IndyStar reported Friday, Sunday’s race will mark the first race in more than two years without Colton Herta’s father Bryan on the seven-time IndyCar race-winner’s radio. The father-son duo paired up to start the 2021 season after the younger Herta was thoroughly absorbed into the Andretti Autosport family that offseason with new high-profile sponsorship support from Gainbridge in the No. 26 car. The pair become famous for their sometimes testy radio back-and-forths – Colton the sometimes heated aggressor and his dad the calm voice of reason.

From 2021: IndyCar's Colton and Bryan Herta say Father's Day will be like any other day: special

Together, they won three times in 2021 and finished 5^th in the championship. Across a rollercoaster of a 2022 campaign that ended with a 10^th-place finish in points, their lone win came in a rain-affected IMS road course race where strategy and tire-choice calls made the difference. On Thursday, an Andretti Autosport official confirmed the news but didn’t respond to a request for a further explanation on the decision. During Saturday’s qualifying broadcast on Peacock, the younger Herta told NBC that he hadn’t made the push for a change-up.

“It wasn’t my decision, but I’m part of Andretti Autosport," he said. "I completely obey their orders and what they want to do,” he said. “We’ll see if it’s the right decision.”

Off-camera, NBC quoted the younger Herta as saying, “I would not have made that move.”

Strangely, the Hertas were paired up for the St. Pete opener, with new Andretti driver Kirkwood listening to fellow former Foyt employee and series veteran Scott Harner on his radio. Harner will now call races on the timing stand of the No. 26, with the elder Herta lending his services to Kirkwood and the No. 27 team.

Saturday, Kirkwood told reporters that he and Herta were given no reason for the change.

"In a perfect world, you make that so we can start the year together, but it's not my decision," Herta told reporters Saturday after qualifying. "But it's been good so far. Scott (Harner) and I speak the same language. Usually when you transition like that, there's a lot of pieces to put together and the language is very different on what you want to hear versus what (the strategist) is saying.

"So far, it's been great. There will be a little bit of a transition period, but he's good. I believe in him."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IndyCar: Win from pole at Texas could shake up Felix Rosenqvist's future