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Long Beach IndyCar: Castroneves beats Montoya to pole

Helio Castroneves will head an all-Penske front row for Sunday's IndyCar race in Long Beach after narrowly edging Juan Pablo Montoya in qualifying on Saturday

The Brazilian's 1m06.6294s lap reset the track record, and kept him ahead of Penske team-mate Montoya by a scant 0.02 seconds.

"Yesterday wasn't the best and the guys changed a lot [on the car]," Castroneves said. "For me, this was great. Now we've got to finish the job."

Montoya felt he had the speed to make the top spot his own, but was left ruing a small error on his fastest lap.

"I really thought I had it there, but I made a mistake in the last corner," he said. "Too greedy. But ifs and buts don't count."

Ganassi's Scott Dixon and Andretti's Ryan Hunter-Reay will start from the second row, leaving Penske's Simon Pagenaud and Josef Newgarden of CFH Racing to hold row three.

The big shock of the afternoon was reigning champion Will Power's elimination in the first round.

He'd backed off after making a small error and was preparing to start another lap when Stefano Coletti hit the wall and brought out the red flag with just over a minute of running time left, denying Power the chance to improve his time and leaving him mired near the rear of the grid.

"I'm kicking myself for not finishing the lap I had a bobble on," he said.

"I just turned the engine down and coasted for a bit.

"It's harder to pass with these cars, so the only thing we've got going for us is that we've got plenty of red tyres.

"We'll do our best and see what we come up with."

The crash also derailed what could have been a good result for Coletti himself, with the rookie sitting provisionally third in his group and in the frame to progress to the next round before his best laps were deleted for causing the stoppage.

STARTING GRID:

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap
1 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m06.6294s -
2 Juan Pablo Montoya Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m06.6587s 0.0293s
3 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m06.7870s 0.1576s
4 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m07.0473s 0.4179s
5 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.1433s 0.5139s
6 Josef Newgarden CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.1716s 0.5422s
7 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.1090s -
8 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 1m07.1290s -
9 Sebastien Bourdais KVSH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.2411s -
10 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m07.3161s -
11 Sebastian Saavedra Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.3924s -
12 Carlos Munoz Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m07.4049s -
13 James Hinchcliffe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m07.3976s -
14 Luca Filippi CFH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m08.6104s -
15 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.4217s -
16 Jack Hawksworth AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 1m08.6276s -
17 Gabby Chaves Bryan Herta Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m07.4653s -
18 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m08.8348s -
19 James Jakes Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m07.7702s -
20 Takuma Sato AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 1m08.8732s -
21 Conor Daly Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m08.7825s -
22 Francesco Dracone Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m09.8815s -
23 Stefano Coletti KV Racing Technology Dallara/Chevrolet 1m10.4644s -

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