Will Power believes his rough start to the 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series season is now behind him after securing only his second pole position of the year on the championship’s return to Road America.
The Australian driver, one of only a handful of drivers on the grid with past experience of the Elkhart Lake circuit in top-level single seater racing having raced there during the Champ Car era, secured his forty-fourth career IndyCar pole position in great fashion on Saturday.
Despite experiencing traffic during his qualifying runs, Power was able to maximise the use of some new red-walled Firestone tyres to deny Scott Dixon top spot, with his lap of 1:42.2105 ending up 0.1654 seconds faster than the New Zealander.
“It was a session of all traffic,” revealed the Team Penske driver. “Every single run I had was traffic. Took a risk in the second round and got through on used tires and that gave us the best shot at the pole because (Scott) Dixon has been very quick.
“I am really excited to get pole, I really am. Been kind of a rough start of the year for us, but we are firing on all cylinders now. A lot of guys used new tires on every run, and we were the only one on used. I really had to lay it out.
“We are going to do everything we can to win this damn race. That is what we have to do.”
