Penske's Power assumes Iowa pole after Castroneves bumped

A series of heat races and penalties at Iowa Speedway left Team Penske's Will Power on pole for tomorrow's Iowa Corn 250 IndyCar Series race.

After penalties moved provisional pole-sitter Helio Castroneves back in the field to the eleventh position on the grid, Power found himself on the point for the 2:30 PM EDT green flag on the small bullring of a circuit outside Newton, Iowa.

“We had a good car," said Power. "This track is mentally and physically exhausting. It should be fun race.”

Castroneves incurred the ten-spot penalty for an unauthorized engine change. Andretti Autosport's James Hinchcliffe and teammate Marco Andretti picked up the second and third starting positions, and Ed Carpenter was fourth to round out the first two rows of cars to start the race.

Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon, who won heat race 1 and finished fifth in heat race 3; Takuma Sato, who was second in race 1; James Jakes, Ana Beatriz and Josef Newgarden also incurred penalties for engine changes.

Sebastian Saavedra, Dragon Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: Chris Jones

Despite the penalty, Castroneves earned bonus points from the qualifications results that keep him in the front of the IndyCar Series championship race, sixteen points ahead of defending series champ Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosports.

Castroneves set a new track record with a lap of 185.687 mph (17.3324 seconds) in single-lap qualifying ahead of the three heat races, replacing Dixon in the record books (182.360 mph, 17.6468 seconds).

The race will be televised live on the ABC network and will be available on IMS Radio Network affiliates, XM/Sirius 211, IndyCar website (IMS Radio Network and Timing & Scoring) and the INDYCAR 13 app (in-car cameras, Timing & Scoring, IMS Radio Network).