Simon Pagenaud on Indianapolis GP pole amid qualifying upsets
IndyCar championship leader Simon Pagenaud took advantage of a host of big names being eliminated to claim Grand Prix of Indianapolis pole position on the track's road course for Penske
The Frenchman was the only Penske Dallara-Chevrolet driver to make the fast six, and trumped Charlie Kimball to the top spot with a 1m08.6868s - a pole lap record on the new road course layout.
The six eliminated at the end of the second stage of qualifying in truth looked more like the six expected to battle it out for pole, with the Penske duo of Juan Pablo Montoya and Will Power, and the Ganassi Dallara-Chevy of Scott Dixon all missing out on the fast six.
Instead, the three Honda-powered cars of Graham Rahal, James Hinchcliffe and Jack Hawksworth all reached the final six-minute shootout, lining up third, fourth and sixth respectively.
Josef Newgarden was the other top-six contender and finished fifth, 0.7448s off Pagenaud's time.
UPDATE: Rahal and Newgarden penalised
Montoya and Power both bemoaned traffic on their flying laps, meaning Montoya will line up eighth while Power starts from 12th for the race.
Max Chilton was on the cusp but narrowly missed out on the fastest 12 by just 0.0029s meaning he will line up on the seventh row for the race.
The first qualifying group featured a handful of big scalps including Team Penske's Helio Castroneves, who wrestled braking issues that prompted several excursions across the Turn 6 grass.
Ryan Hunter-Reay, Carlos Munoz and Marco Andretti's eliminations compounded a difficult session for the Andretti Dallara-Honda team.
The part-time entries of Matt Brabham, JR Hildebrand, Spencer Pigot, Gabby Chaves and Alex Tagliani all failed to make it through to the second stage of qualifying.
UPDATED GRID
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Simon Pagenaud | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m08.6868s |
2 | Charlie Kimball | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 0.2948s |
3 | James Hinchcliffe | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | Dallara/Honda | 0.5392s |
4 | Jack Hawksworth | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Dallara/Honda | 0.8273s |
5 | Tony Kanaan | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 0.5643s |
6 | Juan Pablo Montoya | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 0.5777s |
7 | Scott Dixon | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 0.7142s |
8 | Sebastien Bourdais | KVSH Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 0.7568s |
9 | Mikhail Aleshin | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | Dallara/Honda | 0.9903s |
10 | Will Power | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1.2429s |
11 | Max Chilton | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 0.6421s |
12 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti Herta | Dallara/Honda | 0.4607s |
13 | Helio Castroneves | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 0.8079s |
14 | Matthew Brabham | Team Murray | Dallara/Chevrolet | 0.6076s |
15 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 0.8408s |
16 | J.R. Hildebrand | Ed Carpenter Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 0.7509s |
17 | Carlos Munoz | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 0.9589s |
18 | Spencer Pigot | Rahal Letterman Lanigan | Dallara/Honda | 0.7723s |
19 | Marco Andretti | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1.0610s |
20 | Takuma Sato | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Dallara/Honda | 0.7791s |
21 | Alex Tagliani | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Dallara/Honda | 1.7241s |
22 | Conor Daly | Dale Coyne Racing | Dallara/Honda | 0.7927s |
23 | Gabby Chaves | Dale Coyne Racing | Dallara/Honda | 1.0852s |
24 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan | Dallara/Honda | - |
25 | Josef Newgarden | Ed Carpenter Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | - |
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