Power tops Chevy dominant qualifying to claim pole in St. Louis

Evan Roberts
Jun 15
4 min read

Written by Evan Roberts

The wait for first Chevrolet's first Pole Position of the 2025 season ended in Qualifying for the St Louis 500 as Will Power was the man of the hour around the1.25 mile oval besting Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin to take his fifth pole in St Louis.

Team Penske were the stars of the show in qualifying with all three cars within the top five. The remaining two would also be Chevy powered cars with Pato O'Ward and David Malukas ending up fourth and fifth.

First out on track for qualifying would be the only driver yet to have raced on an oval so far this season as Jacob Abel, who was bumped out of the 2025 Indianapolis 500, set the opening speed for the rest to try beat at an average of171.424 miles per hour.

Next would be the pair of Prema Racing drivers, first Callum Ilott, then Robert Shwartzman. Having secured pole position for the only Oval so far this season, their superspeedway pace hasn't carried over onto the short variation as the duo set average speeds of 176.758 and 174.265 mph.

Following this would be two of the three Rahal Letterman Lanigan cars. Devlin DeFrancesco who was the first of which, would end up with a 176.288. Then would be our newest writer Louis Foster. The rookie struggled on his opening lap with a big lift before making a sizable improvement on lap two to set an average of 174.907mph to slot in behind his teammate.

After Foster came Sting-Ray Robb and Nolan Siegel, both drivers setting average times in comparison to their teammates who came later in the session. Robb managed an average of 174.474, before being bested by Siegel who made a big jump in speed on his second lap with a 175.779.

Big things were expected from Conor Daly with his short track prowess, an average of 176.807 to go to the top would not disappoint. He wouldn't stay there for long however as next came Marcus Ericsson who was the first of the drivers to go into the 177s with an average of 177.405mph. After such an impressive result last weekend in Detroit, a 173.035 for Kyffin Simpson will put him on the backfoot going into tomorrows race.

Standings after 10:

Ericsson
Daly
Ilott
Defrancesco
Siegel
Foster - R
Robb
Shwartzman - R
Simpson
Abel - R

Next would be the first of the Ed Carpenter Racing cars in the form of Christian Rasmussen who despite an impressive performance at Indy, couldn't back it up with another good result at 174.170. Then would be two drivers who both struggled at the brickyard nearly a month ago, Rinus Veekay and Graham Rahal would both find decent speed with 176.224 and 174.687 respectively.

After that we would have the first of the Foyt cars with Santino Ferrucci chasing the back end of his car on the opening lap having touched the kerb on the first corner of his first lap. He would make a big improvement on his second attempt however to set a 175.963.

The second of the ECR cars of Alexander Rossi would set a new benchmark at the top of the timings with a very impressive average of 177.996 mph. It would not last for long however as the 2019 polesitter Josef Newgarden set a monster opening lap in the 179s before following it up with a just as impressive 178 to set an average of 178.910. Almost a whole mph faster than his closest competitor at the time.

A run as quick as that would usually last a while at the top. Not with lil Dave around. WWT Raceway's biggest fan David Malukas would set a scorching average of 179.079 mph to become the sixth different driver to go fastest.

Next we would see two drivers who faced major crashes at Indy this year. Marcus Armstrong would be the first of those, being the first driver to set an average in the 178s with a 178.754 average. Closely followed by Colton Herta with a 178.511.

As the track rubbered in, and the temperatures started to drop, the times only continued to get faster. McLaughlin was the next to take over at the top with a blistering opening lap before backing it up to deliver an average of 179.783mph.

Standings after 20:

McLaughlin
Malukas
Newgarden
Armstrong
Herta
Rossi
Ericsson
Daly
Ilott
Defrancesco
Veekay
Ferrucci
Siegel
Foster - R
Rahal
Robb
Shwartzman - R
Rasmussen
Simpson
Abel - R

We would then have back to back Scott's as Dixon was next up, not being able to best his Kiwi counterpart however as he settled nicely into the top 10 at 178.014 mph. Following Dixon would be his former teammate at Chip Ganassi Racing, Felix Rosenqvist. Despite a big improvement on his second lap, he would slot in behind his current teammate for the second qualifying in a row with a 178.696 mph average.

Having previously achieved pole position four times before in St Louis, it almost felt like destiny that Power would set the timing tower alight. And wow that he did, both laps being over 180mph left the Australian with an average of 180.329.

Christian Lundgaard would be next to set a speed. A 176.868 meant he failed to qualify in the top 10. We would then see the first of our race winners this season as victor last time out Kyle Kirkwood placed himself yet again in a position to challenge. He ended up right behind his Andretti Global teammate Colton Herta with a 178.229.

The final McLaren car of O'Ward would prove to be the best of the trio of papaya machines as an impressive run put him into the top three with a two-lap average of 179.190.

He would end up ahead of the man he, as well as the rest of the grid, will be hoping to chase down as an unusual unremarkable run for Alex Palou left him ninth following the conclusion of his two laps with an average of 178.381 mph.

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