While Will Power and Dario Franchitti continue their battle for the IZOD IndyCar Series title tonight at Twin Ring Motegi, Helio Castroneves will look to keep up the momentum he has in his corner after winning at Kentucky Speedway two weeks ago.
Castroneves won his fourth pole in five seasons at Twin Ring Motegi with a two-lap average of 201.992 mph, which was enough to complete a Team Penske sweep of the top three spots.
Ryan Briscoe will start on the outside of the front row after posting an average of 201.594 mph. Meanwhile, championship leader Will Power (201.463) and his main rival Dario Franchitti (200.964) will be side-by-side in Row 2 after qualifying third and fourth respectively.
Power holds a 17-point lead over Franchitti heading into tonight’s race (11 p.m. ET, Versus), the next-to-last event on the calendar. He has never raced at the 1.5-mile oval, while his Scottish adversary has plenty of Motegi experience dating back to his days in CART. However, Franchitti has never won at Motegi either.
Row 3 features Andretti Autosport teammates Marco Andretti and Tony Kanaan, followed by Ryan Hunter-Reay and E.J. Viso in Row 4 and Dan Wheldon and Takuma Sato in Row 5.
Sato has already had trouble this weekend and had to qualify a repaired primary machine after backing his No. 5 LOTUS/KV Racing Technology machine into the wall during the first practice. According to the team, an oil fitting came loose before Sato went into Turn 1 and oil spilled onto the rear tires, causing him to spin out and crash. He was checked, released and cleared to drive after the incident.
As for the other Japanese driver in tonight’s race, Hideki Mutoh of Newman/Haas Racing qualified 17th with no problems.
A full starting grid for tonight’s race can be found here.
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Quotes from the top three and title contenders
3-Helio Castroneves, Team Penske (pole sitter)
“It is a great team effort. A 1-2-3 start for Team Penske is awesome. These boys deserve it. They’ve worked really hard, especially on the ovals. I have to thank the guys at the shop as well. All of the hard work has paid off today. Now we have to make it happen in the race.”
6-Ryan Briscoe, Team Penske (starts second)
“It’s really exciting. It’s so fast, but it’s not an easy track. You really have the wind down there in Turn 3 and 4. And today, the track improved a lot from practice. The speeds were a lot higher. Helio did an amazing job. He did a “one man band” on his warm up lap. It was an impressive run. But I sort of knew it from his run that the track was fast, and I really pushed hard out there. Made a little mistake on my first lap with my gears. But really going into the second lap, it was exciting to get in the 202’s around here. That is really fast on this track. It’s just a great event to be in the top three.
“We as a team have made a lot of changes this year coming to this track. We weren’t happy with the performance here last year, and it is a real testament to the engineers that have given us these race cars to come here with. “
12-Will Power, Team Penske (championship leader; starts third)
“We’ve had a pretty good lap time over the last couple of races. We’re going to ultimately look to win it. I was very happy when Helio went. I was happy when Dario went out there, wow, it was fast. And when Helio went, I was like he’s in good shape. He’s taking the points from Dario.”
10-Dario Franchitti, Target Chip Ganassi Racing (second in points; starts fourth)
“The Target car was great. There’s more grip than this morning but the first lap I didn’t know how much grip there was, so I was a little conservative with that first one than the second lap. It was a good pick up from practice, so we’ll see where that puts us. I think we have a better race car than qualifying car. I’m still shaking from qualifying. [Motegi’s] a great race track. It really produces great racing. It really is a place that you have to hang it all out.”
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Quotes were taken from Saturday’s league press release.
