Armstrong leads six laps in Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix
Birmingham, Ala. (4 May 2025) – Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) had its first hiccup of the 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season, but overcame a tough qualifying session to earn a pair of top-20 finishes in Sunday’s Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park outside of Birmingham.
The Ohio-based team has had its issues on the 2.3-mile, 17-turn Barber road course in the past, having scored just one top-10 result in its INDYCAR SERIES history, and today was another chapter in that book as Felix Rosenqvist (No. 60 SiriusXM Honda) led the team with a 13th place finish, while teammate Marcus Armstrong (No. 66 SiriusXM / Root Insurance Honda) placed 17th.
Both drivers set themselves up well for a strong finish during the first half of the 90-lap race with both MSR cars running longer than every other car on their first two fuel stints, allowing Armstrong to lead a season-high six laps. The longer stints were designed to set the team up for a shorter – and quicker – fuel stop late in the race, but the strategy went by the boards due to a fueling problem in Armstrong’s No. 66 machine during his second stop.
Starting 11th, Armstrong’s top-10 charge was blunted when a problem with the fuel hose kept the team from getting enough Ethanol in the car on his second trip down pit lane, forcing an extra stop just a few laps later to rectify the problem. A final stop with 18 laps to go for a final splash of fuel dropped him behind his teammate and off of the lead lap, where he would finish 17th.
Rosenqvist ran as high as second during the race when he and Armstrong were stretching their fuel loads, but his 14th-place starting spot – which marked the first time through the season’s first four races that the Swede did not qualify in the top 10 – left him battling in the middle of the 27-car field.
His final stop of the day came with 26 laps to go, forcing Rosenqvist to run his longest stint of the day over the final orbits, which he did expertly to cement his 13th-place finish.
MSR will pack up and head Indianapolis for the Month of May, which starts with the May 10th Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. The Saturday event will be followed by the Indianapolis 500 on May 25, which will see the team expanded to three cars as MSR minority owner Helio Castroneves attempts to win his record fifth Memorial Day Classic.
Meyer Shank Racing Driver Quotes:
Felix Rosenqvist: “Not a perfect weekend, just lacking something the whole weekend. I feel like, I was not really comfortable with a car, but I feel like we kind of got to a good balance towards the race, but we didn’t have the pace. When you feel like you’re you’re trucking along pretty well, and then you look at the lap time, it’s just not there, especially on blacks. I thought reds were acceptable, but still missing a little bit, but the blacks were just killing us. I think honestly, with the strategy that we had, we could have moved up to like, p5, p7, but we just didn’t have the pace to do it.”
Marcus Armstrong: “I felt like we had good pace and the car felt like it was running pretty well. But, unfortunately there was a mistake in pit lane and that kind of pushed us back down the field having to pit an extra time. Definitely an unfortunate day and a tough weekend – I’m looking forward to heading to Indy next week.”