A set-up tweak left Scott McLaughlin’s Team Penske entry “too hard to drive” when he qualified only 16th for the IndyCar Grand Prix.

The last-start winner is set to line up on the eighth row for tomorrow’s 85-lap race around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course after falling at the first hurdle in Qualifying.

McLaughlin missed the cut in Group 2 by 0.3191s and reported on his radio after his final lap, “Same as last time, man; too hard to drive.”

Elaborating on that comment on the Peacock stream which is carried by Stan Sport, the he said, “We just missed the balance completely, unfortunately.

“The Odyssey Battery Chevy felt pretty good all day; just… I don’t know, we changed a little bit after Practice 2 – not crazy; just a little smidgeon here and there – and we just missed the ballpark, and [at] a track like this, you just can’t do it.

“So, anyway, it is what it is.”

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Qualifying was held in overcast conditions and light rain had fallen earlier in the day, but McLaughlin dismissed that as a significant factor in the underwhelming performance.

“I’m sure maybe a little bit of the sprinkles did something, but it wasn’t crazy,” reasoned the New Zealander.

“It’s just tight. IndyCar is just so hard and that’s why you love it when things go good but you hate it when things go bad.

“We just missed it and, unfortunately, when you miss it by a little bit, you’re just too far off, so we’ll work hard, we’ve got a great team behind us – Thirsty Threes, Odyssey Battery – we’ll come through to the front.”

McLaughlin was the worst qualifier of the Penske trio although his team-mates hardly fared much better.

Only Will Power made it through to the second segment of qualifying but a mistake on his red tyre run consigned the 2022 champion to 12th, with Josef Newgarden set to start from 13th.

Next up is a Warmup session tomorrow at 11:15 ET/01:15 AEST, with a green flag in the 85-lap Race due at 15:45 ET/05:45 AEST.

Both sessions are live and ad-free on Stan Sport, with the pre-race show beginning at 05:30 AEST.