Toronto IndyCar: Pagenaud takes stunning first pole of the year
Defending IndyCar champion Simon Pagenaud laid down a startling sub-59sec lap around Toronto’s street course to claim his first pole position of the season ahead of surprise performer Graham Rahal.
Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images
Having looked strong all weekend, Pagenaud turned a searing 58.9124sec lap of the 1.786-mile course to beat the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda of Rahal by 0.3121sec and score his 10th pole position of his career.
Perhaps more amazing was that Pagenaud outpaced Penske teammates Helio Castroneves and Will Power by 0.52 and 0.63 seconds respectively – a huge margin around a one-minute course.
Scott Dixon was almost 0.9sec adrift, despite a brilliant Q2 effort on his final lap, while local hero James Hinchclifffe claimed sixth in the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda.
Penske’s fourth man, Josef Newgarden, missed out in a final desperate sprint to progress from Q2, after JR Hildebrand’s crunching encounter with a wall brought out a red flag and left everyone with a final chance to lay down one flying lap.
Newgarden will roll off seventh alongside the fastest Andretti Autosport-Honda of Alexander Rossi, who had been Top Six until the stoppage. Max Chilton was second fastest Ganassi driver and will start ninth ahead of Takuma Sato and Marco Andretti and Hildebrand who lost his best time.
A heavy shunt from Esteban Gutierrez at the end of the second group in Q1, left stars such as Tony Kanaan (Ganassi) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti) outside the Top 12 – 14th and 16th respectively.
Toronto lineup
Cla | # | Driver | Time | Gap | Mph |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Simon Pagenaud | 58.9124 | 109.138 | |
2 | 15 | Graham Rahal | 59.2245 | 0.3121 | 108.563 |
3 | 3 | Helio Castroneves | 59.4345 | 0.5221 | 108.180 |
4 | 12 | Will Power | 59.5430 | 0.6306 | 107.982 |
5 | 9 | Scott Dixon | 59.7970 | 0.8846 | 107.524 |
6 | 5 | James Hinchcliffe | 1'00.1415 | 1.2291 | 106.908 |
7 | 2 | Josef Newgarden | 59.8992 | 0.9868 | 107.340 |
8 | 98 | Alexander Rossi | 1'00.0114 | 1.0990 | 107.140 |
9 | 8 | Max Chilton | 1'00.1202 | 1.2078 | 106.946 |
10 | 26 | Takuma Sato | 1'00.1970 | 1.2846 | 106.809 |
11 | 27 | Marco Andretti | 1'00.3384 | 1.4260 | 106.559 |
12 | 21 | J.R. Hildebrand | 1'02.3040 | 3.3916 | 103.197 |
13 | 20 | Spencer Pigot | 59.7585 | 0.8461 | 107.593 |
14 | 10 | Tony Kanaan | 1'00.0607 | 1.1483 | 107.052 |
15 | 19 | Ed Jones | 59.8686 | 0.9562 | 107.395 |
16 | 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | 1'00.0926 | 1.1802 | 106.995 |
17 | 83 | Charlie Kimball | 59.9820 | 1.0696 | 107.192 |
18 | 4 | Conor Daly | 1'00.2713 | 1.3589 | 106.678 |
19 | 14 | Carlos Munoz | 1'00.1650 | 1.2526 | 106.866 |
20 | 7 | Sebastian Saavedra | 1'00.6272 | 1.7148 | 106.051 |
21 | 18 | Esteban Gutierrez | 1'00.7441 | 1.8317 | 105.847 |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments