Mid-Ohio IndyCar: Power beats Newgarden to pole
Will Power scored the 49th pole of his career to join Bobby Unser at 4th on the list of all-time polewinners, as Newgarden gave Penske a front-row lockout and Takuma Sato starred for Andretti Autosport.
Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet
Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images
It’s the sixth straight year that Power has started on the front row at Mid-Ohio, and he needed a 64.1720sec lap to grab pole and edge his newest teammate Josef Newgarden by 0.1347.
Most remarkable was that the Penske-Chevy pair were half a second quicker than their closest opposition, Sato’s Andretti-Honda, although a somewhat downbeat Graham Rahal might have bridged that gap had he not made an error on his final run.
Helio Castroneves took fifth, 0.68 adrift of top spot, with Mid-Ohio meister Scott Dixon of Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda in sixth.
The most remarkable exclusion from Group 2 qualifying was defending race-winner and polesitter Simon Pagenaud in the fourth Penske, falling just 0.05sec short of getting through. Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda’s James Hinchcliffe was eighth, ahead of two more Andretti cars, those of Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay.
Conor Daly scored his highest starting position of the year in the #4 AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy, while Esteban Gutierrez got his Dale Coyne Racing-Honda through to the top 12.
Tony Kanaan, who had looked roughly on the pace of teammate and Mid-Ohio star Dixon through practice, was docked his fastest lap for causing a local yellow, and that was enough to prevent him graduating to Group 2 and he will now start. Daly was the beneficiary.
Cla | # | Driver | Time | Gap | Mph |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 12 | Will Power | 1'04.1720 | 126.672 | |
2 | 2 | Josef Newgarden | 1'04.3067 | 0.1347 | 126.407 |
3 | 26 | Takuma Sato | 1'04.6792 | 0.5072 | 125.679 |
4 | 15 | Graham Rahal | 1'04.7959 | 0.6239 | 125.452 |
5 | 3 | Helio Castroneves | 1'04.8485 | 0.6765 | 125.351 |
6 | 9 | Scott Dixon | 1'05.1927 | 1.0207 | 124.689 |
7 | 1 | Simon Pagenaud | 1'04.3008 | 0.1288 | 126.418 |
8 | 5 | James Hinchcliffe | 1'04.3784 | 0.2064 | 126.266 |
9 | 98 | Alexander Rossi | 1'04.4906 | 0.3186 | 126.046 |
10 | 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 1'04.4928 | 0.3208 | 126.042 |
11 | 4 | Conor Daly | 1'04.8745 | 0.7025 | 125.300 |
12 | 18 | Esteban Gutierrez | 1'05.0368 | 0.8648 | 124.988 |
13 | 83 | Charlie Kimball | 1'04.9930 | 0.8210 | 125.072 |
14 | 27 | Marco Andretti | 1'04.5929 | 0.4209 | 125.847 |
15 | 19 | Ed Jones | 1'05.0337 | 0.8617 | 124.994 |
16 | 20 | Spencer Pigot | 1'04.6186 | 0.4466 | 125.797 |
17 | 10 | Tony Kanaan | 1'05.3200 | 1.1480 | 124.446 |
18 | 8 | Max Chilton | 1'04.8603 | 0.6883 | 125.328 |
19 | 21 | J.R. Hildebrand | 1'05.3382 | 1.1662 | 124.411 |
20 | 14 | Carlos Munoz | 1'04.9440 | 0.7720 | 125.166 |
21 | 7 | Mikhail Aleshin | 1'05.2441 | 1.0721 | 124.591 |
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