mlittle wrote:
----LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Will Power already is $30,000 richer in this young IZOD IndyCar Series season thanks to earning three consecutive PEAK Performance Pole Awards.
The driver of the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske car recorded a quick lap of 1 minute, 9.0649 seconds with 2:30 left in the Firstone Fast Six to secure the pole for the 85-lap Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. He bumped Ryan Hunter-Reay, the 2010 race winner, who set the fast time of 1:09.1409 a lap earlier in the No. 28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda car.
Andretti Autosport teammate Mike Conway, driving the No. 27 Window World Cares car, will share Row 2 with Oriol Servia in the No. 2 Telemundo Newman/Haas Racing car. Justin Wilson, driving the No. 22 Z-Line Designs/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing car, and Helio Castroneves in the No. 3 Auto Club of Southern California car for Team Penske will be on Row 3.
For the first time since Long Beach 2010, neither Target Chip Ganassi Racing car qualified for the Firestone Fast Six shootout. Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon will be on Row 4.
More later this evening............
----When it comes to going fast, Will Power keeps moving the bar higher and higher. The quickest man in qualifying for Sunday's Toyota Grand Prix at Long Beach has also scored 3-poles-in-a-row and earned his 19th career pole position with a lap of 1:09.064 to edge Ryan Hunter-Reay, the defending race winner, by an amazingly thin .076.
With three rounds of qualifying run to determine the participants in the Firestone Fast 6, many drivers made setup changes to try and find extra speed, but Power says his car was nearly perfect the entire time.
"We didn't change anything," said Power. "Maybe half a turn of front wing. Qualifying pretty important around here. Man, I've finished on the podium in the past couple of years, but I want to win one. It's one of my favorite tracks. I love it around here. I've been trying to win it for the last couple of years, you know, just sort of there knocking on the door.
"But as you know, in racing everything has to go right on the day, absolutely everything. I think that that's what we've got to do tomorrow. We've got to do very similar to Barber and just put the whole thing together."
Power's 1:09.064 was well below the lap record of 1:09.318 he established in 2010. The gap from Hunter-Reay's lap of 1:09.140 to his teammate, Mike Conway was just the opposite, with the Englishman's 1:09.641 a half-second slower.
After running Power so hard in the dying laps of the session, Hunter-Reay was visibly deflated after missing out on pole. A ragged final lap could have pipped Power, but a big slide erased the extra speed he was carrying. "It's my fault," said the Andretti Autosport driver. "I carried in the speed... Hey, you gotta go for it, right? I really wanted that pole. With Penske and Ganassi as strong as they are, the chance to punch them in the face--metaphorically speaking--is something you have to try."
For Conway, who struggled most of the weekend to final the ultimate pace in his Andretti Autosport machine, starting third was a welcome improvement. "A difficult couple of days but we just kept working at it," he said. "Well done to the guys and great job by Ryan [Hunter-Reay] as well."
Spain's Oriol Servia continued the resurgence of Newman/Haas Racing by placing fourth in the Firestone Fast Six. Servia's 1:09.682 was .127 up on Justin Wilson, who set a 1:09.809 to claim fifth. "It’s great to add a little bit of Telemundo blue to the front instead of all those red cars that we’ve been seeing for a few years," said the Champ Car veteran. "I’m very happy to be starting in the second row. We started in the third row last week and second row this week. We are definitely getting closer to the front where we want to be and where this team has always been. Newman/Haas is the winningest team at this track and I finished second in 2007 so if together we can just improve a little bit, we can get to the top.”
Wilson, still nursing a fractured wrist, had hoped to get more out of his Dreyer & Reinbold Racing entry, but appeared to be somewhat satisfied with his result. "We made a few changes and the car is much better now," said the lanky Briton. "We ended up with a race car that's pretty good. I think we learned a lot and hopefully we'll do well tomorrow."
The final member of the Fast 6 was Team Penske's Helio Castroneves, who made a big improvement from this morning's practice session and was quite happy to post a 1:09.842, despite being the slowest in the session. "The car was very difficult in the beginning," said the three-time Indy 500 winner. "First, to be here in the top 6 is a great effort by the entire team. I have to say if you told me I'd be in the top 6 this morning, I'd have said 'no way!'"
There were many surprises in the first three rounds of qualifying, but the biggest had to be when both Target Chip Ganassi entries failed to transfer out of the Firestone Fast 12.
Dario Franchitti, who qualified seventh, missing out on the Fast 12 for the second straight week, said a few small setup changes and a bit of traffic kept him out of the Fast 6. "They weren't terrible changes," said the 2010 series champion. "We were just missing a little bit. It's not one thing or another; it's a combination of things. I mis-timed that lap. If I'd have tied a lap together, the car was quick enough to make it through."
His teammate, two-time series champion Scott Dixon, will start eighth after point the blame at Will Power for blocking him on a lap that would have put him inside the final session. "I was on my fastest lap and Power had already done his time and slowed down in front of me. We were going to be around two tenths up on our previous best time so its really unfortunate for the Target team today."
Alex Tagliani was pleased with qualifying ninth, and believes they could be stronger in Sunday's 85-lap race. "I think we have a car to compete tomorrow and to try and get on the podium," said the French-Canadian. "We'll just have to execute everything, stay out of trouble in Turn 1, and survive all the attrition and we should be in great shape."
In addition to Ganassi missing the Fast 6, the other big shocker came when Ryan Briscoe, the man to beat in the second and third practice session, registered the slowest time in the Fast 12. If Hunter-Reay was frustrated by missing out on pole, Briscoe was a blend of disbelief and mild shock.
"I just didn't get a clean lap," said the Aussie. "We made a change and I got really loose. You miss [by] a little bit and you lose a lot. We just made a step back there in qualifying. What are you going to do?"
After starting at the back of the Barber race, Tony Kanaan was happy to have fewer cars to pass when the green flag waves. "I thought we had a top 8 car," said the Brazilian. "I got blocked on my fastest lap, but it's such a tight field. You have to have the perfect lap. Obviously, it's not where we want to be, but we're working on our way up."
Newman/Haas Racing's rookie driver James Hinchcliffe one again led the first-year contingent with the 11th fastest time. “Maybe we spoiled ourselves a little last week by getting inside top top-10," said the Firestone Indy Lights graduate. "When I think of the fact that it’s my first time in an Indy car on a street course and the troubles we had yesterday, I guess we can be too upset but I think we had more in the Sprott car."
Other notables in qualifying were Marco Andretti, who appeared to be on pace for the Fast 12, but finished just outside after touching the wall and bending his suspension. He'll start 14th. Conquest Racing rookie Sebastian Saavedra impressed to qualify 15th, one spot ahead of Ganassi's Graham Rahal, who had a second altercation with Panther Racing's JR Hildebrand in as many weeks.
"I was a half-second up on my fast lap, and they waved [Hildebrand] out of the pits in front of me and he didn't move over," said Rahal. "'I didn't see you' was all he said, which is what he said last week (when the two hit each other in the Barber Motorsports Park race)."
HVM Racing's Simona De Silvestro will start down in 18th after clipping the wall as she oversteered on the exit of Turn 8 in the first round of qualifying. "We bent the toe link and didn't have the time to fix it," she said. "I don't think we had the pace to make the Fast 12, though."
Danica Patrick will start 20th in the field, while Sebastien Bourdais--a driver that is unaccustomed to being so far down the qualifying sheet at Long Beach--continued to struggle in his Boy Scouts of America IndyCar, qualifying 21st.
Takuma Sato will start 22nd after locking up the brakes into Turn 1 with two minutes remaining in the first round of qualifying. Sato was uninjured and the car wasn't heavily damaged. After Hinchcliffe and Saavedra, the four remaining rookies qualified 23rd (James Jakes), 24th (Charlie Kimball), 26th (Ana Beatriz) and 27th (JR Hildebrand).
The 25th position went to Paul Tracy who simply struggled to find the speed necessary to place his Dragon Racing entry where it had been earlier in the weekend. "I thought the car felt pretty decent, but the lap time didn't come on the [Red] tires," he said. "We’re missing time somewhere so we're starting toward the back and we'll just try and steer clear of the carnage tomorrow."