Mikhail Aleshin got on track one second before the gun fired to indicate the end of Saturday’s qualifying session at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the young Russian used his run well to make it through to the fast nine shoot-out.
The Schmidt Peterson Motorsport driver made three attempts during the day to make it through to Sunday’s pole position shoot-out, but it was his third attempt of 230.209mph that saw him make it, bumping out Alexander Rossi in the process.
Aleshin felt it was a good start to the weekend for the Schmidt team, with team-mate James Hinchcliffe ending up fastest in the session, meaning the two full-time drivers in the team will participate in the fast nine pole position shoot-out on Sunday.
“I think everything was in seconds in the end,” admitted Aleshin. “I just managed to go out on track and that was my only chance to get up there.
“You know, with team help I obviously used it for 100 percent. I want to congratulate the team, all the team with the results that we had. I think all the team is very strong and especially James’ results shows it.
“I think it’s a good official start of the weekend. And good official start of 500 for all team. Yeah, we start from there.”
