Photo Credit: IndyCar
With a qualifying resume that now includes six Verizon P1 Awards in 2015, it is hard to believe that defending Verizon IndyCar Series champion Will Power is only fourth in the current points standings and is not likely to feature in the title fight that will take place Sunday in the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma, the final race of this year’s campaign. Nonetheless, despite earning only one victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in May, the Team Penske chauffeur showed Saturday in California’s wine country that there is no driver on the full time fleet who is faster over the course of a single lap.
Power topped the charts in each of the three segments of qualifying, eventually securing the pole position with a 1:16.259 pass of the 2.52 mile Sonoma Raceway during the Firestone Fast Six, in turn breaking a track record by two tenths of a second that was held by former Team Penske driver Ryan Briscoe since 2005. The pole run is the 13th in 16 races this season for Roger Penske’s squad, the first season in which the Captain has run four cars full-time. Despite the ease in which the Australian made his way around the twisty and undulating layout, he still had to fight for the pole position Sa.
CFH Racing’s Josef Newgarden came the closest to snatching the top spot from Power, placing his GoPro-sponsored Chevrolet on the outside of the front row, missing the pole position by 13 one hundredths of a second. Last week’s Pocono 500 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay was the fastest Honda-powered car on Saturday and will start third for Andretti Autosport.
While Power is looking to break his way back into the winner’s circle on Sunday, his teammate Juan Pablo Montoya is looking to secure his first American open wheel racing championship since the 1999 CART season. Montoya fared well on Saturday, advancing to the Firestone Fast Six where he eventually settled for the fifth starting spot, a half second behind his teammate, but more importantly ahead of the two biggest challengers between him and the crown.
The first of those is Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal, who also advanced to the Fast Six and will start alongside the Colombian on the outside of row three. While Team Penske was upfront as has been the norm for the entire 2015 season, Chip Ganassi Racing was unable to match the pace and were unable to place any of their four cars in the Fast Six. This fact shines most negatively upon Scott Dixon, who entered this weekend’s finale third in championship points. Dixon will start ninth on Sunday and may be forced to go off sequence in pit strategy early on in order to threaten the top two point scorers.
Montoya, who leads Rahal by 34 points and Dixon by 47, must finish fourth or better on Sunday to wrap up the championship, regardless of what results Rahal and Dixon achieve.
Among other notables during qualifying on Saturday, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ Mikhail Aleshin qualified 14th in the 25-car lineup. The Russian is making his first appearance in a Verizon IndyCar Series event since his terrible crash during practice last year at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. Spain’s Oriol Servia, who is driving the late Justin Wilson’s No. 25 Andretti Autosport Honda, qualified 19th fastest. This will mark Servia’s second start of the season, to go alongside the Indianapolis 500 when he drove “The Late Show with David Letterman” special for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Servia finished 29th after being involved in a turn one crash with Ed Carpenter.
Stay tuned to OnPitRoad.com for a full recap of the IndyCar Series season finale on Sunday evening.
