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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