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Qualifying report

Iowa IndyCar: Top 10 quotes after qualifying

Will Power took the pole for tomorrow's Iowa Corn 300 Verizon IndyCar Series race on the 0.894-mile Iowa Speedway,

Polesitter Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet

Polesitter Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet

Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Polesitter Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet
Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet
J.R. Hildebrand, Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet
Helio Castroneves, Team Penske Chevrolet
Helio Castroneves, Team Penske Chevrolet
Ed Carpenter, Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet pit stop
Takuma Sato, Andretti Autosport Honda
Mikhail Aleshin, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda pit stop
Tony Kanaan, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda
Ed Jones, Dale Coyne Racing Honda
James Hinchcliffe, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda
Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda

Cla#DriverTimeGapMph
1 12 australia Will Power 34.7541   185.210
"I was a little worried when I saw my teammates' data and the gear trace; they were turning more right than left. But when Helio (Castroneves) went, who had a similar car to me, I thought, 'The track's coming in,' and it seemed like people got more and more consistent, so I thought -- I actually didn't even know what speeds JR (Hildebrand) was on, but I did my absolute best. Very happy to start up front. Obviously around short track racing, pole is more important for the next race and good position than it is track position here. You've got to be very good in traffic, so we've got our eye on that and focusing pretty hard on that."
2 21 united_states J.R. Hildebrand 35.0185 0.2644 183.811
 "So much credit to the team for giving me something I could be confident in out there. The first lap back out after the accident and we gotta go qualify the thing! After we crashed in Texas, the guys put the car back together without setting it up on the set up pad. We went back out in the middle of that race and it felt perfect, right on the money, so I will never question the guys getting the car back together again! The Fuzzy's Vodka boys just did a great job. I feel good about where we qualified, obviously I would have liked to get the pole but I'm happy to be starting on the front row."
3 3 brazil Helio Castroneves 35.0374 0.2833 183.712
“It went pretty well in the No. 3 Hitachi Chevrolet. It did seem to be working nice. It didn’t work in qualifying setup in the practice session this morning. And my second lap of the qualifying we unfortunately hit the limiter. It was very unexpected. We did the same thing on the first lap. The car looks good and now we just need to continue to work for the race. We’re looking for a good result tomorrow.”
4 20 united_states Ed Carpenter 35.0774 0.3233 183.503
"It was tricky.  I think you're seeing from everyone that it's a lot different out there from how we practiced earlier. Especially those early guys getting caught out by it, there just wasn't the same grip. I messed up trying to adjust it and got big loose in Turn 4. It hurt my second lap; I thought it was going to be a pretty good lap. It has been a weird day. JR (Hildebrand) had an accident, now he's sitting in a pretty good spot for tomorrow. We went a little conservative with him coming off the accident, but when I saw him go out I thought it might be a pretty good just based on the way the conditions were. Both ECR cars are strong and it's good to see some Chevys up front. We'll work on having a good practice tonight and be ready to go tomorrow." 
5 26 japan Takuma Sato 35.2405 0.4864 182.653
 "This is a good result for the No. 26 team. Qualifying had tricky conditions - (qualifying was) a lot warmer than the practice earlier today and my teammates who qualified before me had tough runs. We saw their data and tried to learn from (their runs) and make the most of ours. I think we really did a great job pulling things together. Qualifying fifth is really good."
6 7 russia Mikhail Aleshin 35.2791 0.5250 182.454
"I'm happy with our run; the No. 7 Lucas Oil car did a pretty good job. Qualifying isn't everything on an oval, but it's nice to have some speed within our Honda group, and we'll see what happens tomorrow." 
7 10 brazil Tony Kanaan 35.2906 0.5365 182.394
 "That first lap was a hell of a lap. I actually got sideways between Turns 1 and 2, but was able to catch it. We knew it was going to be an uphill battle here with the aero package, but with six of the top-10 qualifying spots being Honda I think we showed it's not going to be one-sided tomorrow night. The No. 10 NTT Data Honda is good in race trim, so I think we're going to be competitive and be able to make some moves toward the front tomorrow night."
8 19 united_arab_emirates Ed Jones 35.3107 0.5566 182.290
"It was a good qualifying session. The track changed a lot from the morning practice, so it was very difficult to drive out there. I think a lot of people struggled, but the engineers did a good job deciding what to do with the car and we were able to end up eighth. Now we just need to make some changes to make the car competitive for the race run and hopefully we can get another good result." (About how difficult it is to go out and qualify here with such short laps): "You just have to rehearse it in your mind before you go out there so you know exactly what to do because it happens so quickly. It's a lot of fun, you come out and your shaking a bit because it's pretty extreme." 
9 5 canada James Hinchcliffe 35.5257 0.7716 181.187
"For two laps of a 7/8-mile oval, it's amazing how out of breath you are qualifying here in these conditions. It was really loose for us in the Arrow car - just trying to battle that and trying to keep your foot on the throttle as much as you could. Luckily we were able to help Mikhail (Aleshin) a little bit and give him a heads up. This isn't our best type of track, so for the two of us to be ahead of some of the Ganassi and Penske cars, that's a good start." 
10 15 united_states Graham Rahal 35.5353 0.7812 181.138
 "I'm disappointed because I think we had a quicker car than that. We just lost the balance a little bit in qualifying, but the GEHL boys will continue to work hard to give us the best race car they can. We didn't get a lot of running in this morning in race trim, so hopefully we will be able to do that tonight. It's not that the car was bad, but I know we had better than that. The balance changed a lot over the run. It looks like we ran more trimmed than most guys, but we wanted to take a swing for the fences."

 

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