Rosenqvist & Co. “have something cooking” after St. Pete

A 32-year-old from Värnamo, Sweden, Rosenqvist set the tone early by leading opening practice and breaking the track record at the 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street circuit during Top 12 qualifying before advancing to the Fast Six and securing a front row start for only the fourth time in MSR’s history.

The outcome of the race could have undoubtedly been different if Rosenqvist didn’t start on the softer alternate (green sidewall) tires, which ended up being the less preferred strategy option with the timing of the cautions.

Even with that, though, his No. 60 Honda-powered entry managed to be a factor among the top three for the majority of the 100 laps before a dropped wheel nut during the last pit stop on lap 65 slid him down the running order to collect a seventh-place finish.

The outing was the first top 10 for MSR since Helio Castroneves finished 10th last year at Texas Motor Speedway, and best finish since Simon Pagenaud’s seventh on the Streets of Toronto in 2022.

“That car and driver and timing stand and people have something cooking,” Shank told Motorsport.com.

“Seventh is not where we thought we'd finish, but we had a great first pit stop, second one was terrible - we dropped a nut, so that cost us where we should have been ultimately in staying ahead of Colton Herta (who finished fifth).

“But we talked about this with him before, 'If this happens, Felix, be cool. It's fine. We just need something solid under us so that we can go forward.' … And this started it, I feel.

“I think we'll be really, really strong in qualifying and then we'll tune and get better in the race as we go. But if we start banging these numbers out like we're doing right now, it's going to be a good thing for us.”

One thing that has Shank’s attention moving forward is the performance by Chevrolet, who scored a 1-2-3-4 sweep in the opening round of the IndyCar Series season, led by race winner and pole-sitter Josef Newgarden of Team Penske.

For MSR, it is something to monitor.

“We're going to go back and look at the actual numbers to see what went on and where their advantage was,” Shank said.

“They do seem to be strong. They do seem to have something right now. Don't know what it is - chassis, motor. I don't know what it is right now, but trust me, there's a lot of people looking at it and we'll see.

“I'm not concerned yet, but we just need to understand what's going on.”