Helio Castroneves on Long Beach IndyCar pole after chaotic session
Helio Castroneves took advantage of an erratic IndyCar qualifying session in Long Beach to claim pole position in an all-Chevrolet top six
Will Power caused a red flag at the tail end of the final qualifying session when he locked up into the right hander at the end of the long straight.
While the Team Penske driver didn't cause any significant damage to his Dallara-Chevrolet, the resulting stoppage meant it was a one-lap shootout for pole, and left the Australian sixth as he was without a recorded lap in the final session.
Castroneves set a pole lap of 1m07.1246s to end up 0.3209 seconds ahead of Scott Dixon, while Simon Pagenaud, Tony Kanaan and Juan Pablo Montoya completed a top five covered by 0.7808s.
The result is Castroneves' second Long Beach pole in a row and his second straight pole of the 2016 season after he topped Phoenix qualifying a fortnight ago.
Uncertainty reigned at the end of the penultimate part of qualifying, as a fault with the timing system left a handful of drivers scratching their heads as to whether they would be in the final session.
Castroneves initially appeared to have missed out on the top six, but in fact was confirmed to have made the cut for the pole shootout after the times were re-evaluated.
Initially told he had set a time good enough for fourth, James Hinchcliffe had actually posted only the seventh-fastest time - highest of the Honda-powered runners.
Josef Newgarden and Ryan Hunter-Reay also looked to have made the cut for the top six according to the frozen timesheets, but when full data was downloaded by the series it revealed Kanaan and Castroneves had progressed instead.
Newgarden qualified in ninth behind Takuma Sato, while Hunter-Reay finished in 11th behind Andretti team-mate Carlos Munoz.
Formula 1 refugees Alexander Rossi and Max Chilton both failed to make it out of their respective qualifying groups - Rossi will line up 16th while Chilton will start 19th.
QUALIFYING RESULTS
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Helio Castroneves | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m07.1246s | - |
2 | Scott Dixon | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m07.4455s | 0.3209s |
3 | Simon Pagenaud | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m07.7410s | 0.6164s |
4 | Tony Kanaan | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m07.7951s | 0.6705s |
5 | Juan Pablo Montoya | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m07.9054s | 0.7808s |
6 | Will Power | Team Penske | Dallara/Chevrolet | - | - |
7 | James Hinchcliffe | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | Dallara/Honda | 1m07.1415s | - |
8 | Takuma Sato | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Dallara/Honda | 1m07.2299s | - |
9 | Josef Newgarden | Ed Carpenter Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m07.2548s | - |
10 | Carlos Munoz | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1m07.2663s | - |
11 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1m07.3171s | - |
12 | Luca Filippi | Dale Coyne Racing | Dallara/Honda | 1m07.9660s | - |
13 | Conor Daly | Dale Coyne Racing | Dallara/Honda | 1m07.7520s | - |
14 | Sebastien Bourdais | KVSH Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m07.6432s | - |
15 | Charlie Kimball | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m07.8065s | - |
16 | Alexander Rossi | Andretti Herta | Dallara/Honda | 1m07.6872s | - |
17 | Graham Rahal | Rahal Letterman Lanigan | Dallara/Honda | 1m07.8841s | - |
18 | Mikhail Aleshin | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | Dallara/Honda | 1m07.8513s | - |
19 | Max Chilton | Chip Ganassi Racing | Dallara/Chevrolet | 1m08.3843s | - |
20 | Jack Hawksworth | AJ Foyt Enterprises | Dallara/Honda | 1m07.9929s | - |
21 | Marco Andretti | Andretti Autosport | Dallara/Honda | 1m08.2045s | - |
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