Aleshin wins his first IndyCar pole
Hot on the heels of contending for victory at Mid-Ohio, Mikhail Aleshin earned his first ever pole position in the Verizon IndyCar Series, as speeds hit 220mph mark at Pocono Raceway.
Photo by: IndyCar Series
Late cloud cover coincided with the runs of Takuma Sato, Helio Castroneves and Josef Newgarden, making the 2.5-mile tri-oval quicker late in the session. Yet Aleshin’s 220.445mph average held strong and presented him his second pole in his sophomore IndyCar season.
It also gave Schmidt Peterson Motorsports a sweep of poles on 2.5-mile superspeedways this year, as James Hinchcliffe took top spot for the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500.
Newgarden and Castroneves were comfortably the quickest Chevrolet runners in a session otherwise dominated by Honda runners. Sato’s AJ Foyt Racing-Honda split the Ed Carpenter and Team Penske entry and was the third of the cars to break into the 220mph zone.
Carlos Munoz and Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi went fifth and seventh for Andretti Autosport, with Hinchcliffe sixth.
Although qualifying is largely irrelevant in a 500-mile race around such a wide track as Pocono Raceway, for the record Will Power topped the realistic 2016 title contenders in eighth, with Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud 14th and Scott Dixon’s Chip Ganassi Racing-Chevrolet 19th.
He will start ahead of only the Dale Coyne Racing drivers Conor Daly and Pippa Mann, as well as Ryan Hunter-Reay who was unable to take part following his shunt this morning.
Others who struck the wall in morning practice did make qualifying, however. Charlie Kimball will roll off 16th, with Juan Pablo Montoya driving a “Frankenstein” collation of his Penske teammates’ body panels in 15th.
P. | N° | Driver | Team (Engine) | MPH |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 7 | Mikhail Aleshin | Schmidt (H) | 220.445 |
2 | 21 | Josef Newgarden | Carpenter (C) | 220.195 |
3 | 14 | Takuma Sato | Foyt (H) | 220.067 |
4 | 3 | Helio Castroneves | Penske (C) | 219.781 |
5 | 26 | Carlos Muñoz | Andretti (H) | 219.647 |
6 | 5 | James Hinchcliffe | Schmidt (H) | 219.463 |
7 | 98 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti-Herta (H) | 219.326 |
8 | 12 | Will Power | Penske (C) | 218.617 |
9 | 10 | Tony Kanaan | Ganassi (C) | 218.606 |
10 | 20 | Ed Carpenter | Carpenter (C) | 218.424 |
11 | 15 | Graham Rahal | Rahal (H) | 218.204 |
12 | 41 | Jack Hawksworth | Foyt (H) | 218.051 |
13 | 27 | Marco Andretti | Andretti (H) | 218.012 |
14 | 22 | Simon Pagenaud | Penske (C) | 217.721 |
15 | 2 | Juan Pablo Montoya | Penske (C) | 217.284 |
16 | 83 | Charlie Kimball | Ganassi (C) | 216.917 |
17 | 8 | Max Chilton | Ganassi (C) | 216.689 |
18 | 11 | Sébastien Bourdais | KVSH (C) | 216.263 |
19 | 9 | Scott Dixon | Ganassi (C) | 215.337 |
20 | 88 | Conor Daly | Coyne (H) | 214.757 |
21 | 19 | Pippa Mann | Coyne (H) | 211.267 |
22 | 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | Andretti (H) | no time |
(C) = Chevrolet, (H) = Honda
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments