Simon Pagenaud set a blistering pace to secure pole position for this weekends Verizon IndyCar Series round at Barber Motorsports Park.
The championship-leading Team Penske driver took a new lap record of the Alabama track of 1m06.7262s to deny team-mate Will Power another series pole position by 0.2159s, and it also gave Pagenaud an additional point in the championship.
Chevrolet power once again was the dominating force in qualifying, with five of the top six using Chevy power, with only sixth placed Graham Rahal making it through for Honda into the Fast Six shootout, which from this weekend has been reduced to six minutes in length.
Behind the Penske duo up front will be Josef Newgarden, who once again showed his potential as a great up-and-coming American racer with third for Ed Carpenter Racing, while Scott Dixon was fourth for Chip Ganassi Racing ahead of Sebastien Bourdais of KVSH Racing and Rahal of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Helio Castroneves just missed out on making it through to the Fast Six shootout, and will start seventh for Team Penske alongside Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ James Hinchcliffe, while row five will see the Chip Ganassi Racing duo of Tony Kanaan and Charlie Kimball.
Max Chilton made it all four Ganassi cars inside the top eleven, while Luca Filippi was twelfth for Dale Coyne Racing.
Once again the Andretti Autosport quartet struggled, with none of the team’s drivers making it through into the second phase of qualifying, with Carlos Munoz the highest qualifier in fifteenth.
It was an even more disappointing session for Juan Pablo Montoya, who appeared to struggle and ultimately ended up qualifying at the back of the field in the fourth of the Penske entries.
Barber Motorsports Park Qualifying Result
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