Will Power, Helio Castroneves go 1-2 in qualifying
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The dominance of Will Power continued yesterday in Honda Indy Edmonton qualifying — and considering how tough it is to pass on the 1.97-mile course at City Center Airport, this doesn’t bode well for the competition in this afternoon’s main event (5 p.m. ET, Versus).
Power will look to claim his third victory in a row and defend his Edmonton title of one year ago, which he earned by leading 90 of 95 laps en route to a crushing victory. He’ll be starting on the pole after besting Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, Ryan Briscoe and E.J. Viso in the Firestone Fast Six with a lap of 60.7126 seconds (116.991 m.p.h.), which was enough to nip Castroneves’ best time by roughly eight hundredths of a second.
With his sixth pole of the season in hand (as well as another championship point that boosts his lead to 43 points), Power appears set to continue his surge toward the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series championship. As for Franchitti, his closest pursuer, it’s time to start cutting into the deficit before it grows to a point that even the season-ending stretch of four straight ovals won’t be enough of an opportunity to catch the Australian.
As for the key sub-plots of the weekend, Tomas Scheckter and Alex Tagliani are both on the grid today following their run-in with each other in Toronto and subsequent feud over the matter on Twitter. But both men will have their work cut out for them as Scheckter starts 12th and Tagliani starts 19th. Meanwhile, Canadian pilot Paul Tracy will look to come away with better results in Edmonton after finishing 13th in Toronto. He’ll start 15th this afternoon.
The IndyCars’ final warmup session just ended with Power on top of the charts once more. Dixon, Castroneves, Briscoe and Franchitti rounded out the top five in this morning’s session.
You can check out the full starting grid below the dash marks.
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IZOD IndyCar Series
Honda Indy Edmonton
City Center Airport, Edmonton, Alberta
Starting grid
(Pos/Car #-Driver/Lap Time (Speed))
1. 12-Will Power, Penske, 60.7126 seconds (116.991 m.p.h.)
2. 3-Helio Castroneves, Penske, 60.7891 (116.843)
3. 9-Scott Dixon, Ganassi, 61.2395 (115.984)
4. 10-Dario Franchitti, Ganassi, 61.2481 (115.968)
5. 6-Ryan Briscoe, Penske, 61.3799 (115.719)
6. 8-E.J. Viso, KV Racing Tech., 61.6122 (115.282)
Eliminated in round two
7. 78-Simona de Silvestro, HVM, 61.5438 (115.410)
8. 37-Ryan Hunter-Reay, Andretti, 61.5596 (115.381)
9. 22-Justin Wilson, Dreyer & Reinbold, 61.5887 (115.326)
10. 2-Raphael Matos, DFDragon, 61.7015 (115.116)
11. 06-Hideki Mutoh, Newman/Haas, 62.1935 (114.205)
12. 24-Tomas Scheckter, Dreyer & Reinbold, 62.8751 (112.967)
Eliminated in round one
13. 5-Takuma Sato, KV Racing Tech., 61.9181 (114.713)
14. 32-Mario Moraes, KV Racing Tech., 62.1324 (114.317)
15. 15-Paul Tracy, KV Racing Tech., 62.3264 (113.961)
16. 26-Marco Andretti, Andretti, 62.1465 (114.291)
17. 34-Mario Romancini, Conquest, 62.4191 (113.792)
18. 19-Alex Lloyd, Coyne, 62.2203 (114.156)
19. 77-Alex Tagliani, FAZZT, 62.5240 (113.601)
20. 36-Bertrand Baguette, Conquest, 62.5193 (113.610)
21. 7-Danica Patrick, Andretti, 62.5795 (113.500)
22. 4-Dan Wheldon, Panther, 62.7397 (113.211)
23. 14-Vitor Meira, Foyt, 62.7511 (113.190)
24. 11-Tony Kanaan, Andretti, no time (no speed)
25. 18-Milka Duno, Coyne, no time (no speed)
