Texas IndyCar: Will Power dominates qualifying
Will Power will start Saturday night's IndyCar race at Texas Motor Speedway from pole after dominating qualifying at the 1.5 mile oval
Power secured the top spot with a two-lap average of 219.182mph, well clear of closest contender Marco Andretti's 217.553mph effort.
Andretti's time had held right through the middle phase of the session, seeing off the likes of Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan and former event winner Helio Castroneves before Power finally unseated him.
Kanaan's opening lap of 216.685mph suggested that he could have been a contender for a spot on the first couple of rows, but the Brazilian lost a full 3mph on his second lap, dragging him down to 15th.
Early on, the person to beat was EJ Viso, who was first on track and dropped a 217.244mph average that was good enough to hold up against nearly half the field before Andretti came out.
The Venezuelan's time was still ultimately sufficient for fifth on the grid, with Ryan Hunter-Reay and Dario Franchitti just ahead of him.
Neither Tristan Vautier nor Takuma Sato set times, with Vautier sitting it out while his Schmidt Peterson team changed his engine after his previous Honda unit mileaged out during practice, and Sato not making it to pitlane in time after having a new gearbox installed.
Pos Driver Team/Engine Speed 1. Will Power Penske/Chevy 219.182 2. Marco Andretti Andretti/Chevy 217.553 3. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti/Chevy 217.524 4. Dario Franchitti Ganassi/Honda 217.504 5. EJ Viso Andretti/Chevy 217.244 6. Helio Castroneves Penske/Chevy 217.100 7. Josef Newgarden Fisher/Honda 216.693 8. Charlie Kimball Ganassi/Honda 216.570 9. Ed Carpenter Carpenter/Chevy 216.552 10. James Jakes Rahal/Honda 216.487 11. Scott Dixon Ganassi/Honda 216.447 12. Simona de Silvestro KV/Chevy 216.396 13. James Hinchcliffe Andretti/Chevy 216.248 14. Simon Pagenaud Schmidt/Honda 215.727 15. Tony Kanaan KV/Chevy 215.474 16. Alex Tagliani Herta/Honda 215.406 17. Sebastien Bourdais Dragon/Chevy 214.839 18. Oriol Servia Panther/Chevy 214.586 19. Graham Rahal Rahal/Honda 213.888 20. Sebastian Saavedra Dragon/Chevy 213.217 21. Pippa Mann Coyne/Honda 212.785 22. Justin Wilson Coyne/Honda 207.805 23. Tristan Vautier Schmidt/Honda 24. Takuma Sato Foyt/Honda All drivers use Dallara DW12 chassis Qualifying format: average speed over two laps
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