Long Beach Indy Lights: Jack Harvey grabs pole for Schmidt
Jack Harvey came out on top of a tightly-contested Indy Lights qualifying battle in Long Beach to secure pole for Sunday's race
On an afternoon marked by constant jostling for position at the top of the timesheet, Harvey popped up in the final seconds with a 1m12.0405s effort to deny Spencer Pigot.
The gap between the Schmidt and Juncos cars was just 0.07 seconds.
It was equally close just behind them: Pigot's team-mate Kyle Kaiser enjoyed a spell at the top but was squeezed back to third by 0.04s, and points leader Ed Jones was only 0.007s further back.
The step up in performance of the new Lights car over its predecessor was highlighted by the stopwatch: Carlos Munoz's previous Lights qualifying track record of 1m12.9374s was beaten by seven cars.
Those who fell short included ex-Formula 1 driver Max Chilton and Shelby Blackstock, both of whom will start from towards the rear of the grid after scrapes with the wall.
STARTING GRID:
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jack Harvey | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | 1m12.0405s | - |
| 2 | Spencer Pigot | Juncos Racing | 1m12.1156s | 0.0751s |
| 3 | Kyle Kaiser | Juncos Racing | 1m12.1573s | 0.1168s |
| 4 | Ed Jones | Carlin | 1m12.1651s | 0.1246s |
| 5 | Felix Serralles | Belardi Auto Racing | 1m12.4725s | 0.4320s |
| 6 | R.C. Enerson | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | 1m12.4984s | 0.4579s |
| 7 | Scott Anderson | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | 1m12.8934s | 0.8529s |
| 8 | Juan Piedrahita | Belardi Auto Racing | 1m13.4040s | 1.3635s |
| 9 | Matthew Brabham | Andretti Autosport | 1m13.4802s | 1.4397s |
| 10 | Max Chilton | Carlin | 1m13.6334s | 1.5929s |
| 11 | Ethan Ringel | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | 1m13.6876s | 1.6471s |
| 12 | Shelby Blackstock | Andretti Autosport | 1m14.9394s | 2.8989s |
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