Andretti Global’s Colton Herta clinched pole position for the downtown street race, pipping AJ Foyt Racing’s David Malukas.
The #26 driver clocked a 60.4779s around the course, a meagre 0.1713s faster than Malukas in the #4 car.
It’s Herta’s 15th career pole position and his sixth on a street circuit.
“It was such an unknown, and we were not really strong, to be completely honest, yesterday with the softer tyres,” Herta said.
“The guys did a great job overnight. The Gainbridge Honda was super fast today.
“Happy to start P1 tomorrow – the best seat in the house. Now we just need a nice, easy race, no yellows, go back to how it was before Indy, and make it easy on us.”
Kyle Kirkwood book-ended the top three for Andretti ahead of McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard in fourth and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal.
Points leader Alex Palou was sixth for Chip Ganassi Racing ahead of Dale Coyne Racing’s Rinus VeeKay.
Behind McLaughlin in eighth was his teammate Will Power in ninth. Team Penske stablemate Josef Newgarden had a horror show, qualifying only 24th.
“It was okay,” said McLaughlin.
“I caught [Christian] Rasmussen right at the wrong time so that last push lap, I think we missed by a hundredth or something like that.
‘It’s tight in IndyCar. You can’t afford to not leave yourself enough gap to get a run.
“We maximised as much as we could and that’s where we are.”
Like McLaughlin, Power couldn’t quite scrape through to the Fast 6. He bemoaned a missed opportunity after locking up on his first push lap.
“Man, that was a good lap,” said Power.
“I think I missed a bit in braking in three because the lap before I locked up. I just needed to do it the lap before. That’s when the tyre was at its best. One tenth gets us through.
“It’s IndyCar, man. It’s so, so, so tight. You just leave a little bit of something where and you’re not going to make it.
“Not a big deal here, as you know. It’s a lot of mayhem. For that lap, ‘That’s only ninth?’ I was like ‘My god’.”
Former teammates Scott Dixon and Marcus Armstrong wound up 10th and 11th for Chip Ganassi Racing and Meyer Shank Racing respectively.
McLaren’s Pato O’Ward was only 18th after he failed to advance from the first leg of qualifying.
The Detroit Grand Prix gets underway at 2:30am AEST on Monday, June 2.
Results: IndyCar Series Detroit Grand Prix, Qualifying
| Pos | Num | Driver | Team | Lap | Diff | Gap |
| 1 | 26 | Colton Herta | Andretti Global | 01:00.4779 | ||
| 2 | 4 | David Malukas | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 01:00.6492 | 0.1713 | 0.1713 |
| 3 | 27 | Kyle Kirkwood | Andretti Global | 01:00.7312 | 0.2533 | 0.082 |
| 4 | 7 | Christian Lundgaard | Arrow McLaren | 01:00.8938 | 0.4159 | 0.1626 |
| 5 | 15 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 01:01.0651 | 0.5872 | 0.1713 |
| 6 | 10 | Alex Palou | Chip Ganassi Racing | 01:01.4680 | 0.9901 | 0.4029 |
| 7 | 18 | Rinus VeeKay | Dale Coyne Racing | 01:00.7208 | 0.2639 | 0.0256 |
| 8 | 3 | Scott McLaughlin | Team Penske | 01:00.7599 | 0.303 | 0.0391 |
| 9 | 12 | Will Power | Team Penske | 01:00.7857 | 0.3288 | 0.0258 |
| 10 | 9 | Scott Dixon | Chip Ganassi Racing | 01:01.1595 | 0.7026 | 0.3738 |
| 11 | 66 | Marcus Armstrong | Meyer Shank Racing | 01:01.2434 | 0.7865 | 0.0839 |
| 12 | 21 | Christian Rasmussen | Ed Carpenter Racing | 01:01.5312 | 1.0743 | 0.2878 |
| 13 | 28 | Marcus Ericsson | Andretti Global | 01:01.3816 | 0.3993 | 0.0102 |
| 14 | 45 | Louis Foster | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 01:01.2089 | 0.5211 | 0.0081 |
| 15 | 60 | Felix Rosenqvist | Meyer Shank Racing | 01:01.4149 | 0.4326 | 0.0333 |
| 16 | 20 | Alexander Rossi | Ed Carpenter Racing | 01:01.4307 | 0.7429 | 0.2218 |
| 17 | 90 | Callum Ilott | PREMA Racing | 01:01.4637 | 0.4814 | 0.0488 |
| 18 | 5 | Pato O’Ward | Arrow McLaren | 01:01.6819 | 0.9941 | 0.2512 |
| 19 | 8 | Kyffin Simpson | Chip Ganassi Racing | 01:01.5558 | 0.5735 | 0.0921 |
| 20 | 51 | Jacob Abel | Dale Coyne Racing | 01:01.7311 | 1.0433 | 0.0492 |
| 21 | 14 | Santino Ferrucci | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | 01:01.5797 | 0.5974 | 0.0239 |
| 22 | 83 | Robert Shwartzman | PREMA Racing | 01:01.8499 | 1.1621 | 0.1188 |
| 23 | 30 | Devlin DeFrancesco | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | 01:01.6040 | 0.6217 | 0.0243 |
| 24 | 2 | Josef Newgarden | Team Penske | 01:02.2055 | 1.5177 | 0.3556 |
| 25 | 76 | Conor Daly | Juncos Hollinger Racing | 01:02.1682 | 1.1859 | 0.5642 |
| 26 | 77 | Sting Ray Robb | Juncos Hollinger Racing | 01:02.4053 | 1.7175 | 0.1998 |
| 27 | 6 | Nolan Siegel | Arrow McLaren | 01:08.3196 | 7.6318 | 5.9143 |
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