Texas IndyCar: Sato claims ninth career pole

The third oval pole of Sato’s career (following Iowa 2011 and Pocono 2017) and his second pole this season saw him lap in 220.433 and 220.067mph – the only driver to have both laps over 220.

He led a 1-2-3-4 for Honda, as Sebastien Bourdais was a fine third for Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan, while Ryan Hunter-Reay was top Andretti Autosport driver with fourth.

Simon Pagenaud led the Chevrolet charge in fifth, with Spencer Pigot sixth for Ed Carpenter Racing.

Points leader Josef Newgarden was seventh in a second Penske, but the third Penske of Will Power was way down in 15th, while another title contender Alexander Rossi also struggled with only 11th fastest average.

They were both better off than Marco Andretti who had to come off the throttle and walk his car up the track on his second lap, resulting in a 196mph lap, while Tony Kanaan struck the wall on the exit of Turn 2 on his first flyer and abandoned his run.

The race starts at 7.40pm local (Central) time tomorrow.

Qualifying results:

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Mph
1	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	47.0738		220.250
2	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	47.0926	0.0188	220.162
3	Sébastien Bourdais	Dale Coyne Racing	47.1817	0.1079	219.746
4	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	47.2266	0.1528	219.537
5	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	47.2659	0.1921	219.355
6	Spencer Pigot	Ed Carpenter Racing	47.3210	0.2472	219.099
7	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	47.4147	0.3409	218.666
8	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	47.4597	0.3859	218.459
9	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	47.4619	0.3881	218.449
10	Colton Herta	Harding Racing	47.4712	0.3974	218.406
11	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	47.4954	0.4216	218.295
12	Zach Veach	Andretti Autosport	47.5435	0.4697	218.074
13	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	47.5636	0.4898	217.982
14	Marcus Ericsson	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	47.5699	0.4961	217.953
15	Will Power	Team Penske	47.5816	0.5078	217.899
16	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	47.7387	0.6649	217.182
17	Charlie Kimball	Carlin	47.7426	0.6688	217.165
18	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing	47.7649	0.6911	217.063
19	Conor Daly	Carlin	47.9612	0.8874	216.175
20	Matheus Leist	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	48.2024	1.1286	215.093
21	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	50.1109	3.0371	206.901
22	Tony Kanaan	A.J. Foyt Enterprises
View full results