Phoenix IndyCar: Bourdais beats Penske aces to pole position

Due to IndyCar’s oval qualifying order this year being decided by entrant points, rather than blind draw, St. Petersburg winner Bourdais ran 23^rd and last and that helped him to narrowly eclipse Pagenaud’s superb early (11^th) run. The DCR with Vasser-Sullivan car ran a brilliantly consistent 188.644 and 188.434 to average 188.539mph.

Pagenaud’s 188.148mph was comfortably ahead of Team Penske-Chevrolet teammate Will Power who was relieved just to bounce back from a mediocre practice session.

Alexander Rossi was fourth quickest and led Andretti Autosport-Honda’s quartet, with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda duo James Hinhcliffe and rookie Robert Wickens locking out the third row.

Reigning champion Josef Newgarden was seventh ahead of the second Andretti car of Ryan Hunter-Reay, with Tony Kanaan a somewhat subdued ninth after a wiggle on his first flying lap.

Rookie Pietro Fittipaldi completed the top 10 and a great session for Coyne.

Ed Jones was surprisingly the best Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda driver, as Scott Dixon described his disappointing run – eventually resulting in 17^th – as “a bit of a mystery.”

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda’s pairing of Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato were only 12^th and 13^th despite dominating the preseason test here.

The most disappointing run came from Marco Andretti, running a livery that somewhat emulates the Newman/Haas car of his grandfather Mario who is celebrating 25 years since his final IndyCar win. The third-gen driver will start only 20^th, although rookie teammate Zach Veach is 23^rd and last.