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Qualifying report

Texas IndyCar: Newgarden leads Penske 1-2-3 to take pole

Josef Newgarden scored his second pole position of the IndyCar season and led a Penske 1-2-3 at Texas Motor Speedway, after teammate Will Power hit the ‘hard’ rev limiter on his qualifying run.

Polesitter Josef Newgarden, Team Penske Chevrolet

Polesitter Josef Newgarden, Team Penske Chevrolet

Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Josef Newgarden, Team Penske Chevrolet
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet
Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet
Charlie Kimball, Carlin Chevrolet
Sébastien Bourdais, Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan Honda
Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Newgarden’s laps were 220.444 and 220.782mph to become the only driver to click under 47sec for his two lap total time and produce an average of 220.613mph.

Next fastest was teammate Simon Pagenaud, who has now qualified second for all three of the ovals in this year’s IndyCar season (Phoenix and Indy being the others). His average was 0.3mph off the polesitter.

Power had the fastest Trap 2 speed (217.874) by 1.8mph and the best Trap 3 speed (225.881mph) and therefore believes he would have been on pole had he not “run out of gear” and hit the hard limiter that then saps the power briefly.

Robert Wickens (Schmidt Peterson Motorsports) and Sebastien Bourdais (Dale Coyne Racing) were the fastest Honda runners but Wickens was 1mph off pole.

Kanaan scored a strong sixth for AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet on the team owner’s home turf to beat the best Chip Ganassi Racing, Andretti Autosport and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entrants – Scott Dixon, Alexander Rossi and Takuma Sato, respectively.

Last year’s polesitter with Ganassi, Charlie Kimball, was an impressive 12th for Carlin-Chevrolet, although teammate Max Chilton was 22nd and last after a very slow warm-up lap led to a poor 213mph opening lap.

IndyCar, Texas qualifying

ClaDriverLapsTimeGapIntervalMph
1 1 united_states  Josef Newgarden  2 46.9964     220.613
2 22 france  Simon Pagenaud  2 47.0607 0.0643 0.0643 220.311
3 12 australia  Will Power  2 47.0857 0.0893 0.0250 220.194
4 6 canada  Robert Wickens  2 47.2214 0.2250 0.1357 219.561
5 18 france  Sébastien Bourdais  2 47.2772 0.2808 0.0558 219.302
6 14 brazil  Tony Kanaan  2 47.3085 0.3121 0.0313 219.157
7 9 new_zealand  Scott Dixon  2 47.3182 0.3218 0.0097 219.112
8 27 united_states  Alexander Rossi  2 47.3654 0.3690 0.0472 218.894
9 30 japan  Takuma Sato  2 47.4339 0.4375 0.0685 218.578
10 28 united_states  Ryan Hunter-Reay  2 47.4394 0.4430 0.0055 218.553
11 98 united_states  Marco Andretti  2 47.4659 0.4695 0.0265 218.430
12 23 united_states  Charlie Kimball  2 47.5281 0.5317 0.0622 218.145
13 10 united_arab_emirates  Ed Jones  2 47.5335 0.5371 0.0054 218.120
14 20 united_states  Ed Carpenter  2 47.5471 0.5507 0.0136 218.057
15 5 canada  James Hinchcliffe  2 47.6492 0.6528 0.1021 217.590
16 26 united_states  Zach Veach  2 47.6749 0.6785 0.0257 217.473
17 88 colombia  Gabby Chaves  2 47.7460 0.7496 0.0711 217.149
18 21 united_states  Spencer Pigot  2 47.8020 0.8056 0.0560 216.895
19 4 brazil  Matheus Leist  2 47.8654 0.8690 0.0634 216.607
20 15 united_states  Graham Rahal  2 47.9796 0.9832 0.1142 216.092
21 19 canada  Zachary Claman De Melo  2 48.0416 1.0452 0.0620 215.813
22 59 united_kingdom  Max Chilton  2 48.3865 1.3901 0.3449 214.275

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