Alex Palou and Pato O'Ward in "world of their own" says David Malukas after IndyCar qualifying

AJ Foyt driver, David Malukas, shared post-qualifying that he believes both Alex Palou and Pato O'Ward have been untouchable so far in Laguna Seca.

Palou, who will start the race on pole, is closely followed by O'Ward who had been fastest in Practice One.

Meanwhile Malukas managed to make the Fast Six but qualified in the lowest position in the group in sixth.

Setting a lap time of 1:10.1811, Malukas was nearly two seconds slower than Palou's pole lap time of 1:08.3413.

Despite this, Malukas shared he was just happy to be fighting at the front end of the grid.

"Pato and Palou have kind of been from practice one just in a world of their own", Malukas explained, "so to be right up there with those guys it feels really good.

"[I'm] happy with the car [but] obviously now we kind of need to flip it for warm up coming up and go for the race tomorrow."

Malukas continued to explain that he and his team were unsure how things would shake out in qualifying after Practice Two was cancelled due to early morning fog.

Missing valuable running time in consequence, the American driver used his new red tyres, the softer compound, early to avoid early elimination.

He said: "I mean it felt really good. Obviously we had a different tyre strategy, [I] just didn't know where things were gonna be missing practice in the morning. 

"We did two reds on the first set so coming into this last qualifying had to do a used and felt pretty good to start and end up making a mistake in turn three, but really happy with how things are."

Malukas has qualified into the Fast Six four times this year with a best qualifying position of second at Detroit.

He will start one position behind Will Power who he is currently being lined up to replace at Penske for next year.