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Montoya In Record-Setting Qualifying Run At Pocono

Juan Pablo Montoya received Verizon P1 pole award.  [Joe Jennings Photo]

Long Pond, Pa. – Juan Pablo Montoya showed the Verizon IndyCar Series competitors how it is done with a record-setting qualifying run at the Pocono Raceway late Saturday afternoon.  Qualifications were being staged in preparation for the Pocono INDYCAR 500.  Speeding around the 2.5-mile tri-oval, Montoya set one and two-lap track records for his blazing run.

The new one–lap qualifying mark is 223.920 miles per hour and for two laps, it is 223.871 mph.  The previous standards were set by Marco Andretti a year ago.

In total, 11 drivers exceeded the track record.

Driving the PPG Team Penske Chevrolet, Montoya earned his first pole since returning to the IndyCar this year and for his series career, he notched his 15th pole.  His most recent pole came at Gateway (St. Louis) in 2000.

Said the pole winner, “I had no idea what to expect, but this morning we had a good car in race trim.  But when we first trimmed the car, it was awful, so we made quite a bit of changes for qualifying, and it turned out to be good.  The car was a bit of a handful in Turn 3, but it was good through Turn 1.  The big thing here is you have to be wide open in Turn 1 and if so, it pays off.

“The big thing for us was balance, and we had a hell of a balance.  By running late and if you have good teammates, you can see how much they struggled and you can adjust your car.  Will (Power) went out ahead of me, and he told us he did this and that, so I knew before I started where to go.  Will and Helio (Castroneves) were more trimmed out than I was.”

Power was a tick of the clock slower at 223.725 mph in the Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet.  He went out four cars ahead of Montoya and held the provisional pole until his teammate topped him.

Carlos Munoz put one of four Andretti Autosport Honda’s in the third-fastest slot with Takuma Sato timing fourth fastest in another Honda.

Row three qualifiers were two more Andretti drivers, Marco Andretti and James Hinchcliffe.

Castroneves and Tony Kanaan were seventh and eighth fastest with 2014 Indianapolis 500 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay and Ryan Briscoe rounding out the top-10 qualifiers.

Of the top-10 qualifiers, five had Chevrolet-powered cars and five were in Honda machines.

2013 Pocono winner Scott Dixon qualified 15th fastest.

Josef Newgarden crashed while qualifying, and he will start 21st.

Rookie Jack Hawksworth crashed in practice and was unable to qualify.

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