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Power, Team Penske And Chevrolet Dominate IndyCar Qualifications At Indianapolis

Will Power posted a new track record in his run for the Angie's List GP of Indy pole. [John Wiedemann Photo]

Will Power posted a new track record in his run for the Angie’s List GP of Indy pole.  [John Wiedemann Photo]

 

Indianapolis, Ind. – Will Power soundly thrashed the competition in Verizon IndyCar Series qualifications for Saturday’s Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis, being held for the second time on the 2.439-mile road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

In addition to Power’s accomplishment, the vaunted Team Penske’s entries also notched starting spots of third, fourth and fifth.

Chevrolet swamped the 12 Honda entries by taking the top-10 starting positions for the Grand Prix. For Honda, its best efforts were 11th and 13th and positions 16 through 25.

Driving the Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, Power traversed the 14-turn road course in a record time of 1:09.4886 seconds or a speed of 126.357 miles per hour, besting the year-old mark of 1:09.6716 seconds set by Simon Pagenaud.

The Australian raced to his second Verizon P1 award of 2015 and the 38th of his accomplished career. For Team Penske, the pole was its 227th over its many years of competition.

Said Power about his run, “It surprised me to do so well on old tires, and it shows the team has done a great job with the car. And I had all three teammates in the (Firestone) Fast 6 too. We push each other hard but we have the Ganassi boys knocking on the door, so we have our work cut out for us. With qualifying, you put everything on the line, and other than winning the race, it is my favorite part of the weekend.”

Regarding Honda coming up short, Power said he would like to see the company catch up to level the playing field.

Called Team Penske’s chief competition, Scott Dixon made a strong effort in the final round of qualifications but could only muster a time of 1:09.7156 seconds, which was good enough for the front row in the Target Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet.

“We tried to get tricky in Q2 (round two of three) on used reds (tires), and I couldn’t put the laps together,” the ace said. “We needed another tenth, so it was a mad scramble at the end. It was definitely a nail-biting situation. We knew if we could get into Q3 we definitely had the speed, but we also knew we had to get trickier. Unfortunately, it bit us as we forced Power to do the same thing, as he used older reds to do it. I think we had enough for pole but Power did a really good job.”

Team Penske stars Helio Castroneves, Juan Pablo Montoya and 2014 winner Pagenaud earned the third through fifth starting spots ahead of Tony Kanaan, Sebastien Bourdais, 2014 pole winner Sebastian Saavedra, Luca Filippi and Stefano Coletti.

For Honda, Jack Hawksworth timed 11th and James Hinchcliffe 13th.

Barber winner Josef Newgarden qualified 12th.

Saturday’s Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis will be broadcast by ABC at 3:30 p.m. ET.

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