Salinas, CA (Saturday, September 9, 2023) – David Malukas (#18 HMD Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports) placed eleventh in his group during qualifying on Saturday for the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey and will be starting 22nd for the final race of the season.
Starting: 22nd
- Malukas went out in Group 2 during Round 1 of qualifying.
- Like the rest of his group, he was unable to set a quick time in his first outing due to an early red flag that stopped the session.
- Malukas set his fastest time of 1:07.7816 on the alternate Firestone tire and while his time initially placed him third in his group, he would end up 11th by the end of the 10-minute session.
- In 2022, Malukas started sixth and finished 13th at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca
- So far this season, Malukas has a best starting position of third (Iowa Speedway Race 2) and a best finish of third (World Wide Technology Raceway).
- Next Up: Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey, Sept 10, 2023 (NBC 2:30pm ET)
David Malukas, #18 Dale Coyne Racing with HMD Motorsports Honda
“Unfortunately, it was a short qualifying session for us today. It’s unfortunate because we want to finish the season off strong and starting from the back isn’t the best place to do that. I think I under drove on the alternate tires, but I think that also comes from the lack of running on them in practice because of all the red flags we had. Now, we’ll go back and look at all the data and get ready for tomorrow’s race. I’m confident we’ll have a good car for the race and hopefully we can move up like we did last weekend in Portland and have a strong finish.”