Houston IndyCar: Castroneves beats Pagenuad to race two pole
Helio Castroneves narrowly beat Simon Pagenaud to claim pole position for the second race in this weekend's IndyCar double-header in Houston
Castroneves had gone into the session needing to beat the 1m00.2493s set earlier by Mikhail Aleshin, although it was Pagenaud who first managed to stake a provisional claim to the top spot when he beat the Russian's time on his first run.
Castroneves' own response came when he produced a 59.1702s lap on his second set of tyres, and while Pagenaud was also able to improve, it wasn't by quite enough and he missed out on a clean sweep of Houston poles by just 0.02 seconds.
"The car was awesome," said Castroneves. "Yesterday we missed out by a little bit, and today we didn't miss."
Despite having a slower outright time than Pagenaud, Aleshin will join Castroneves on the front row in reward for having been fastest in the first group, with Pagenaud to start from third alongside Graham Rahal.
Sebastien Bourdais and Justin Wilson complete the top six.
Like yesterday, many of the big guns struggled. Current points leader Will Power's miserable Houston weekend continued; the Australian finishing up mired in 18th, while Scott Dixon could manage no better than 11th and Juan Pablo Montoya 14th.
The latter's progress was hampered to some degree when he was blocked at the chicane by Josef Newgarden; an infraction that cost the SFHR driver his two fastest laps after series officials determined that it constituted qualifying interference.
Bizarrely, the most significant incident of the morning did not involve a car.
The track had just gone green for the first qualifying group when two people were seen running across a section of the track, reaching an access gap in the barriers just as a car came into view.
At time of writing there is no further information regarding how they were able to access the circuit during a session.
Pos Driver Team/Engine Time 1. Helio Castroneves Penske/Chevy 59.1702s Group 2 2. Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt/Honda 1m00.2493s Group 1 3. Simon Pagenaud Schmidt/Honda 59.1962s Group 2 4. Graham Rahal Rahal/Honda 1m00.29932 Group 1 5. Sebastien Bourdais KV/Chevy 59.28632 Group 2 6. Justin Wilson Coyne/Honda 1m00.3369s Group 1 7. James Hinchcliffe Andretti/Honda 59.5133s Group 2 8. Tony Kanaan Ganassi/Chevy 1m00.4841s Group 1 9. Carlos Munoz Andretti/Honda 59.6652s Group 2 10. Takuma Sato Foyt/Honda 1m00.5288s Group 1 11. Scott Dixon Ganassi/Chevy 59.7543s Group 2 12. Luca Filippi Rahal/Honda 1m00.7529s Group 1 13. Carlos Huertas Coyne/Honda 59.8052s Group 2 14. Juan Pablo Montoya Penske/Chevy 1m00.8328s Group 1 15. Ryan Briscoe Ganassi/Chevy 1m00.1384s Group 2 16. Marco Andretti Andretti/Honda 1m01.0311s Group 1 17. Mike Conway Carpenter/Chevy 1m00.1423s Group 2 18. Will Power Penske/Chevy 1m01.1423s Group 1 19. Charlie Kimball Ganassi/Chevy 1m00.1989s Group 2 20. Sebastian Saavedra KV/Chevy 1m01.2876s Group 1 21. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti/Honda 1m00.2244s Group 2 22. Josef Newgarden Fisher/Honda 1m03.4769s Group 1 23. Jack Hawksworth Herta/Honda 1m00.5822s Group 2
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.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