Saturday afternoon at Barber Motorsports Park was devoted to IndyCar qualifying at Barber Motorsports Park.
A typical knockout format was in play, with the fastest six drivers ripping around ample hills and curves to advance through two rounds and to battle it out for pole.
An eventful sequence of events played out, but a familiar name was at the top of the timesheets when time expired.
READ MORE: IndyCar Barber – Full Qualifying Results
Alex Palou earned the 13th pole of his career and the first of the 2026 season with a lap of 1:06.2341 on the 2.38-mile course.
The Spaniard repeated his performance from last season by qualifying in first, and will look to repeat his victory from last year as well.
David Malukas continued his impressive start to his Team Penske relationship, earning a position on the outside of the front row with a lap that was just over one tenth of a second off the pace.
Earning the third starting position was Graham Rahal, who was the only driver to fit used tires in the final round of qualifying.
Marcus Armstrong and Kyle Kirkwood earned the fourth and fifth starting positions respectively, given themselves good momentum heading into the race.
Romain Grosjean was on a fast lap in the first round when he came across traffic that completely ruined his efforts.
After yelling furiously over the radio, Grosjean gathered his emotions and headed directly into a second push lap on the same set of tires.
His speed was enhanced by his anger, and the Frenchman set a lap quick enough to advance easily.
Grosjean advanced all the way to the final round and ultimately earned the sixth starting position.
Just missing the cut
Santino Ferrucci was the first driver to miss out of advancing to the final round.
He showed strong pace and ultimately missed the cut by just 0.0117 seconds, relegating him to the seventh staring position.
Marcus Ericsson was next quick, earning a spot on the fourth row of the grid in his Andretti Honda.
Josef Newgarden was ninth quick, followed by Christian Lundgaard in tenth. Lundgaard in particular looked like he had the pace to advance, but could not quite put a lap together when it was needed most.
In eleventh was Alexander Rossi, representing Ed Carpenter Racing in the top half of the grid. Pato O’Ward rounded out to Top 12 and will start from the 12th position.
Scott Dixon continued his uncharacteristically poor 2026 by qualifying in 13th, making four rounds in a row where he has failed to advance out of the first round.
Consequences and crashes
Only moments after qualifying started, it was halted again for a hard crash by Will Power.
The veteran was on his first push lap and suffered brake failure while attempting to slow down for the Turn 5 hairpin.
His #26 Andretti Global Honda locked the fronts but there was no stopping power from the rear tires and Power slid straight across the gravel pit and into the tire barriers.
Luckily the veteran was uninjured in the incident, but his team will have a lot of work to do to fix the damage, not to mention tracking down why the brakes failed in the first place.
Scott McLaughlin, who had his own spectacular crash in practice earlier in the day, took to the track in a backup car.
Despite the mixed up livery and freshly assembled chassis, McLaughlin was able to show impressive pace right from the outset.
In the end he could not quite match his speed from earlier in the weekend, and was narrowly eliminated in the first round earning the 14th qualifying position.
Drivers will be back on track Sunday morning for a final warm-up practice session, followed by the 90-lap race at noon central time.
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