The 2025 IndyCar season is at its halfway mark, and the 27 drivers went tooth-and-nail to bag the pole position at the Road America Grand Prix. Shockingly, rookie driver Louis Foster emerged as the latest pole sitter in IndyCar.

The Round 1 session for the first group had 13 drivers going out on the 4.048-mile track. Though the frontrunners occupied the strategy of first using the primary tires to set a banker run, other teams like Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing utilized a two-soft alternate tire strategy.

All eyes were on Kyle Kirkwood from the beginning of the session as he stood on the brink of becoming the first Andretti driver in over a dozen years to win three straight races. However, Alex Palou emerged as the fastest by the end of the session as the Chip Ganassi Racing driver, who is aiming to win his third race around the fabled track.

Initially, it seemed like disaster had struck again at the Team Penske outfit as Josef Newgarden was unable to make it out of the relegation zone. But Scott Dixon impeding Devlin DeFrancesco meant that the Kiwi was booted out of the safe zone, and Newgarden’s luck helped him move into Round 2.

All while Callum Ilott carried his PREMA Racing car into the Round 2 qualifications. During Group 2’s session, Christian Rasmussen made a small off-track venture, but had a better session later on.

Meanwhile, Louis Foster held the provisional fastest laptime for the majority of the session, but as the session drew to a close, chaos ensued as the laptimes kept pinning up on the board. This resulted in Colton Herta and Marcus Ericsson being knocked out, as Christian Lundgaard ended the session as the fastest.

With Round 2 starting, the battle to make it into the Fast 6 soon ensued. After the initial runs were done, Pato O’Ward held the bragging rights, but the second half of the session remained a horrible affair for him as he was unable to get a respectable lap in and finished 11th when the checkered flag came out.

Alex Palou finished the session top of the timing sheets with Scott McLaughlin and Kyle Kirkwood being the only other polesitters of the 2025 season going into the Fast 6. Moreover, RLL emerged as the only team to have two cars in the final session as both Graham Rahal and Louis Foster made it through.

As the Firestone Fast 6 started, the battle for the pole position started. McLaughlin was the first one to put in a laptime as he used a scrub set to dwell in with the track.

Meanwhile, WWTR race winner Kirkwood, faced a hybrid issue, which raised doubts on the power units’ reliability during the race, as Conor Daly had faced a similar issue earlier in the session. However, the 2025 IndyCar season saw its second rookie driver, Louis Foster, take pole position at the Road America circuit on a scrub set of soft tires.

Louis Foster revealed how he had minimal expectations from his qualifying session at the IndyCar Road America GP

Louis Foster became the first rookie since Romain Grosjean at the 2021 IndyCar GP at IMS to take pole position at a road course. However, the Briton did not even anticipate making it into the Fast 6, as he later revealed.

Reflecting on his maiden pole, the 21-year-old said on the FOX Sports broadcast:

“I said to the guys as we got out as we got into Fast 12 to not put reds (alternate tires) on because I wasn’t confident that we would make it through to the Fast 6. Boy was I wrong!”

The IndyCar Road America Grand Prix will start at 1:30 PM ET on June 22, as Foster will lead the field to green.