IndyCar St. Pete: Power takes pole, title contenders stumble

Power had just enough grip left in his Firestone reds to nail a 61.0369sec lap, and edge Andretti Autosport duo Alexander Rossi and Colton Herta by 0.13 and 0.14sec respectively. It was the 62^nd pole of Power’s Indy car racing career and his ninth in 11 years at the 1.8-mile street and runway course at St. Petersburg, FL.

Herta was left disappointed by his run, believing the extra set of fresh reds accrued in Q1 failed to turn on in time for him to outperform Power.

James Hinchcliffe emphasized Andretti Autosport’s return to form with an excellent fourth, ahead of semi-sister car, the Meyer Shank Racing machine of Jack Harvey.

Starting alongside him will be the top Arrow McLaren SP entry of Pato O’Ward.

In Q2, Power set top time on primaries, a 60.8237sec just ahead of O’Ward and Herta. On alternates, Power lowered this to 60.3324, ahead of Herta and O’Ward.

Championship contenders Newgarden and Dixon fell in Q2, Newgarden 0.5352sec off Power’s pace, and Dixon 0.6959 behind. The result leaves Newgarden starting eighth alongside AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet’s Sebastien Bourdais, while Rookie of the Year Rinus VeeKay of Ed Carpenter Racing and the second Arrow McLaren SP of Oliver Askew – back after missing the Harvest GP due to concussion will fill out the fifth row.

Simon Pagenaud was up with teammate Newgarden in terms of pace, but spun the #22 Penske-Chevy heading into the final turn, and lost his two best laps, dropping him to 12^th alongside Dixon.

In Q1 Group 2, Herta looked so strong on blacks, setting a 60.6614sec lap – 0.4sec clear of Power, that when they ducked into the pits to grab a set of alternate tires, Herta did not emerge again. Impressively, his fastest time on primaries withstood alternate-tired runs from VeeKay, Power, and Felix Rosenqvist.

However, Rosenqvist – nursing a fracture in his right hand – lost his two best laps for blocking Alex Palou’s Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh, which Ganassi believed was only on an out lap. Thus Rosenqvist was bumped out of qualifying and initially Palou was put in.

That should have benefited Oliver Askew who missed the cut only by 0.0773sec but he and VeeKay initially also lost their best times for not slowing sufficiently for a yellow flag caused by Max Chilton sliding into the Turn 10 run-off. Thus Palou and Conor Daly in the second ECR-Chevy were promoted into Q2…. But only briefly. A timing and scoring glitch saw the wrong laps deleted, and suddenly Askew and VeeKay were back in, while Palou and Daly were consigned to the back half of the grid. This whole confusion took more than 20mins to sort out.

In Q1 Group 1 losses included the two Rahal Letterman Lanigan cars, Takuma Sato clipping an inside wall but surviving a 130mph off course excursion.

Penske’s IndyCar debutant, three-time Supercars champion McLaughlin got within one second of top time, but ended up 12^th and last in the group, admitting he’d made mistakes on his alternate-tired run.

Another surprise exclusion was Ryan Hunter-Reay who had looked strong in morning practice.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Will Power	Team Penske	5	1'01.036			106.165
2	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	4	1'01.173	0.136	0.136	105.929
3	Colton Herta	Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport	3	1'01.181	0.144	0.008	105.914
4	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	4	1'01.362	0.325	0.181	105.602
5	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	5	1'01.367	0.330	0.004	105.593
6	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	4	1'01.772	0.735	0.405	104.901
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Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Will Power	Team Penske	8	1'00.332			107.405
2	Colton Herta	Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport	7	1'00.368	0.036	0.036	107.340
3	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	7	1'00.618	0.285	0.249	106.899
4	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	7	1'00.626	0.294	0.008	106.884
5	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	7	1'00.735	0.403	0.109	106.692
6	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	7	1'00.762	0.430	0.027	106.644
7	Sébastien Bourdais	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	8	1'00.810	0.477	0.047	106.561
8	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	8	1'00.867	0.535	0.057	106.461
9	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	8	1'00.883	0.551	0.016	106.432
10	Oliver Askew	Arrow McLaren SP	7	1'00.977	0.644	0.093	106.269
11	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	8	1'01.028	0.695	0.051	106.180
12	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	8	1'01.229	0.897	0.201	105.831
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Q1 Group 2

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Colton Herta	Andretti Harding Steinbrenner Autosport	5	1'00.661			106.822
2	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	8	1'00.772	0.110	0.110	106.628
3	Will Power	Team Penske	8	1'00.773	0.111	0.000	106.626
4	Sébastien Bourdais	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	8	1'00.880	0.219	0.107	106.438
5	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	7	1'00.941	0.279	0.060	106.332
6	Oliver Askew	Arrow McLaren SP	7	1'01.018	0.357	0.077	106.197
7	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	8	1'01.160	0.499	0.142	105.950
8	Alex Palou	Dale Coyne Racing with Team Goh	8	1'01.163	0.501	0.002	105.946
9	Santino Ferrucci	Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser Sullivan	8	1'01.179	0.518	0.016	105.917
10	Charlie Kimball	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	7	1'01.242	0.581	0.062	105.809
11	Felix Rosenqvist	Chip Ganassi Racing	8	1'01.522	0.861	0.279	105.327
12	Max Chilton	Carlin	5	1'21.790	21.129	20.268	79.226
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Q1 Group 1

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	7	1'00.652			106.838
2	Jack Harvey	Meyer Shank Racing	7	1'00.731	0.078	0.078	106.700
3	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	8	1'00.743	0.090	0.011	106.679
4	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	8	1'00.872	0.219	0.129	106.452
5	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	8	1'00.874	0.222	0.002	106.448
6	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	7	1'00.886	0.234	0.011	106.427
7	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	7	1'00.942	0.289	0.055	106.330
8	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	8	1'00.961	0.309	0.019	106.296
9	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	8	1'01.145	0.493	0.183	105.976
10	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	7	1'01.173	0.520	0.027	105.929
11	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	7	1'01.640	0.988	0.467	105.125
12	Marco Andretti	Andretti Herta Autosport with Marco & Curb-Agajani	7	1'01.683	1.030	0.042	105.053
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