St. Pete IndyCar: Wickens grabs amazing debut pole in damp session

Wickens lapped the 1.8-mile runway/street course in 61.6643sec, his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-Honda edging seven-time St. Pete polesitter Power by 0.0703sec.

Wickens was initially bottled up behind a tentative Power as the shootout began, but neither made any significant errors once they separated themselves and as the track dried, they each got to within two seconds of the typical dry-lap time here, with the Canadian earning pole with his final lap.

Barely less impressive was Matheus Leist who avoided drama, relied on great car control and earned an amazing third place for AJ Foyt Racing on his IndyCar debut.

Another rookie, Jordan King, clocked fourth fastest after an impressive day for Ed Carpenter Racing, beating two stars in the wet, Takuma Sato in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda, and Ryan Hunter-Reay in Andretti Autosport-Honda.

It was in Q2 that the rain that was starting to sprinkle in Q1 came down harder. Wickens took full advantage to nail an early lap on reds and top the group, with Power a close second. Sato spun at Turn 1 but was able to continue and ultimately made it into the Firestone Fast Six.

Ganassi’s Scott Dixon half-spun at Turn 1 and as he rejoined the track, he obstructed James Hinchcliffe but the incident went unpunished. Neither advanced, and will start ninth and seventh respectively, separated by the Harding Racing-Chevrolet of Gabby Chaves – a remarkable performance for a team starting only its fourth race.

Penske’s Simon Pagenaud was another Turn 1 spinner – three times – and the third was the one that saw him stall and end the Q2 session with a red flag. That deleted his two fastest laps and consigned him to 12th on the grid.

Alexander Rossi’s name was deleted from the Fast Six for qualifying interference which allowed Andretti Autosport teammate Hunter-Reay through.

Pagenaud’s teammate, reigning champion Josef Newgarden, was the shock exclusion from Q1 Group 1, sliding wide on his decisive lap, while the second group saw Graham Rahal spin exiting Turn 10 on his first lap on the alternate compound. That brought out the red flag and cost him his two best laps.

Another driver to lose his two best laps from that session was Marco Andretti, who got through to the Top 12, but was then penalized for interference with the second Ed Carpenter car of Spencer Pigot.

That gave Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing some hope as it allowed Sato into the top dozen from where he made it to the Fast Six.

Qualifying results:

Pos.	Driver	Car / Engine	Time	Delay
1	Robert Wickens	Dallara/Honda	1'01.6643	-
2	Will Power	Dallara/Chevrolet	1'01.7346	0.0703
3	Matheus Leist	Dallara/Chevrolet	1'01.7631	0.0988
4	Jordan King	Dallara/Chevrolet	1'01.7633	0.0990
5	Takuma Sato	Dallara/Honda	1'01.8821	0.2178
6	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Dallara/Honda	1'02.0385	0.3742
7	James Hinchcliffe	Dallara/Honda	1'00.9986	(Q2)
8	Gabby Chaves	Dallara/Chevrolet	1'01.1191
9	Scott Dixon	Dallara/Honda	1'01.6527
10	Tony Kanaan	Dallara/Chevrolet	1'01.7213
11	Simon Pagenaud	Dallara/Chevrolet	1'04.6739
12	Alexander Rossi	Dallara/Honda	1'07.0377
13	Josef Newgarden	Dallara/Chevrolet	1'00.4320	(Q1)
14	Sebastien Bourdais	Dallara/Honda	1'00.9587
15	Zach Veach	Dallara/Honda	1'00.4585
16	Spencer Pigot	Dallara/Chevrolet	1'00.9668
17	Ed Jones	Dallara/Honda	1'00.5009
18	Marco Andretti	Dallara/Honda	1'01.3013
19	Jack Harvey	Dallara/Honda	1'01.0270
20	Max Chilton	Dallara/Chevrolet	1'01.3360
21	Charlie Kimball	Dallara/Chevrolet	1'01.1868
22	Zachary Claman De Melo	Dallara/Honda	1'01.8567
23	Rene Binder	Dallara/Chevrolet	1'01.7003
24	Graham Rahal	Dallara/Honda	1'04.0990