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Castroneves Captures 50th Pole

Helio Castroneves puts the Verizon P1 Award sticker on after capturing his 50th career pole. [John Wiedemann Photo]

Helio Castroneves puts the Verizon P1 Award sticker on after capturing his 50th career pole. [John Wiedemann Photo]

by Paul Gohde

The steamroller kept rolling Saturday at Road America as Team Penske Chevrolet dominated four rounds of qualifying to capture the first four starting spots for Sunday’s Verizon IndyCar Series’ Kohler Grand Prix.

Helio Castroneves led the Penske sweep by capturing his 50th career pole; something that made him very happy. “I haven’t won here yet in my career. It would be cool to win here, and this is a good step towards that,” said the smiling elder-statesman of Indy car racing. “My first lap (in the Fast 6 round) was ok, so on the second lap I had nothing to lose. I came in and the team made adjustments that were just perfect.”

Penske’s Will Power will line up next to his teammate who Power says, “gets faster as he gets older-like fine wine. I’m just happy to be on the front row with him.”

Row two Penske residents Josef Newgarden and Simon Pagenaud were just glad to be near the front even though they line up behind their faster colleagues. “I’m not super happy when you don’t get the pole. We just missed it by a little bit. But that was the best lap we’ve done on the used Red tires,” said the newest Penske driver who wasn’t alone in struggling a bit with tires. “I’d rather be surrounded by my teammates because I trust them. We’ll take care of each other.”

Pagenaud also found handling issues with the Red tires saying that “The car wasn’t what we expected. I struggled in turns 1 and 3. We thought we’d have more pace, but it’s fantastic for Team Penske.”

The Penske Chevrolet’s were the class of the Bow Tie Brigade, but Honda drivers filled the next nine spots on the grid with Scott Dixon fifth and Graham Rahal sixth; the final two spots in the Fast 6 group. “We were decent today but we struggled with balance. We have pretty equal straightaway speed but the big difference (with the Chevys) is handling. That’s what it is.” And the second fastest Honda agreed with Dixon. “I was loose all weekend. (But) they’ve got something that we don’t. We tried things all over the place but the car just isn’t responding,” noted Rahal. “I’ve put myself in a good place for tomorrow. I didn’t use my Reds because we’re race minded. I didn’t want to use up my Reds.”

So Chevy leads the 21-car field into Turn 1 Sunday with a brigade of Hondas at their heels. It’s a long distance track with a lot of trouble lurking around its 14 corners. Track conditions will change as different tire compounds lay down rubber during the 11 other weekend races. Tomorrows Kohler Grand Prix will run for 55 laps; five more than last year. Will those five extra circuits change fuel strategies? Will tires last for full fuel stints?

It looks like a Penske Chevrolet just might win based on qualifying. After all Simon Pagenaud called Castroneves’ fastest lap a “magic lap”. It’ll be hard to argue with that. But at times, magic works in other ways. We’ll soon know.

KOHLER Grand Prix qualifying results
ELKHART LAKE, Wisconsin – Qualifying Saturday for the KOHLER Grand Prix Verizon IndyCar Series event on the 4.014-mile(s) Road America, with qualifying position, car number in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine, time and speed in parentheses:
1. (3) Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 01:41.3007 (142.649)
2. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 01:41.3611 (142.564)
3. (2) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 01:41.6608 (142.143)
4. (1) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 01:42.0385 (141.617)
5. (9) Scott Dixon, Honda, 01:42.9308 (140.389)
6. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 01:45.0464 (137.562)
7. (8) Max Chilton, Honda, 01:42.7566 (140.627)
8. (27) Marco Andretti, Honda, 01:42.8614 (140.484)
9. (5) James Hinchcliffe, Honda, 01:43.2105 (140.009)
10. (83) Charlie Kimball, Honda, 01:43.3221 (139.858)
11. (19) Ed Jones, Honda, 01:43.7959 (139.219)
12. (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 01:43.9786 (138.975)
13. (14) Carlos Munoz, Chevrolet, 01:42.9039 (140.426)
14. (20) Spencer Pigot, Chevrolet, 01:42.8875 (140.449)
15. (98) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 01:43.0171 (140.272)
16. (10) Tony Kanaan, Honda, 01:42.9077 (140.421)
17. (18) Esteban Gutierrez, Honda, 01:43.1652 (140.070)
18. (21) JR Hildebrand, Chevrolet, 01:42.9132 (140.413)
19. (7) Mikhail Aleshin, Honda, 01:43.8891 (139.094)
20. (26) Takuma Sato, Honda, 01:43.4111 (139.737)
21. (4) Conor Daly, Chevrolet, 01:44.1579 (138.736)

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