The Team Penske driver edged out Meyer Shank Racing duo Felix Rosenqvist and David Malukas for his fourth pole position of the season.

“We had a focus this morning, well, early noon, just to focus on the qualifying car,” said McLaughlin.

“We knew we only had a short run before qualifying, and we knew how important it is to be at the front here.

“It went to plan. The car has been great from the jump. We’re in a really good spot, obviously, for tomorrow.

“As we know, this is IndyCar. Anything can happen. But we’ll try to stay on our toes and focus on this last practice session tonight just to get our race balance right, and hopefully we can come with a pretty fast printer wagon for tomorrow.”

McLaughlin came to Gateway sixth in the standings and is 83 points in arrears of series leader Alex Palou.

The Chip Ganassi Racing driver qualified seventh but will start 16th after a nine-place grid penalty for an unapproved engine change.

McLaughlin said he is keen to make the most of the opportunity.

“I think we’re in a really good spot for tomorrow to maybe make some points back here,” said McLaughlin.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that we can put ourselves back in the hunt with a good result tomorrow. That’s our big focus right now. But yeah, proud to get the pole.”

Will Power, who is second in the standings, will start from fifth. Teammate Josef Newgarden qualified fourth.

The session wasn’t without drama. Andretti Global’s Colton Herta went backwards into the wall at high speed on his second lap, ruining his hopes of pole position. He will start 25th.

“It just broke loose,” Herta said.

“[It’s] unfortunate. I think that first lap was decent. I don’t think it was going to get us the pole, but I think it could have got us in the top five.

“Second lap, I don’t know if we wore the tyres too much or what happened. [The car] just let go pretty early and that’s all she wrote.”

Sunday’s race is set to get underway at 8am AEST.

Results: IndyCar Series, Bommarito Automotive Group 500 Qualifying