In his 109th Verizon IndyCar Series event, Charlie Kimball secured his maiden pole position, with his two-lap time of 46.5861s denying Chip Ganassi Racing team-mate Scott Dixon by just 0.0083 seconds.
Kimball, who has one race victory to his name in the series at Mid-Ohio back in 2013, had been quick in practice earlier in the afternoon, and he converted that into the pole with a two-lap average speed of 222.556mph, a new track record.
Dixon, the current championship leader, will join the American on the front row, while row two sees Alexander Rossi of Andretti Herta Autosport alongside another Chip Ganassi Racing entry, this time series veteran Tony Kanaan.
The top four were all over 222mph, while Tristan Vautier showed great speed to qualify fifth for Dale Coyne Racing despite only being confirmed as Sebastien Bourdais’ stand-in earlier this week. The Frenchman has not been in an IndyCar since Sonoma back in 2015, but showed no ring rust by qualifying just ahead of the fourth Ganassi entry of Max Chilton.
Mikhail Aleshin will start seventh for Schmidt Peterson Motorsport ahead of Andretti Autosport’s Takuma Sato, with the top eight drivers all powered by Honda.
Team Penske’s Will Power was the leading driver of those powered by Chevrolet in ninth, just ahead of team-mate Helio Castroneves, Graham Rahal and Simon Pagenaud.
Texas Motor Speedway Qualifying Result
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