INDIANAPOLIS James Hinchcliffe watched the Indianapolis 500 a year ago from his hospital bed. He had almost died from injuries six days earlier in a practice crash at famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
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Defending Indy 500 champion Juan Pablo Montoya qualified 17th and will start in the middle of row six.
Newgarden and Hunter-Reay, the 2014 race champ and one of Hinchcliffe’s former teammates with Andretti Autosport, both congratulated the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports driver.
Hinchcliffe earned the pole with a four-lap average of 230.760 miles per hour.
Hinchcliffe was able to joke about the situation after qualifying, recalling how his parents were away on vacation when he crashed previous year. A piece of the car’s suspension pierced his left thigh and he lost massive amounts of blood. IndyCar officials let him make another attempt.
The front row in the traditional three-abreast start will have Josef Newgarden and Ryan Hunter-Reay alongside Hinchcliffe.
Newgarden will start second after qualifying at 230.700, and the difference between Hinchcliffe and Newgarden was the fourth-closest between first and second in Indys 100-year history.
The nine fastest drivers from Saturday will compete in a late afternoon pole shootout, and if it resembles anything like the first day of qualifications, fans could be in for a real treat.
“It was an incredible day”, Schmidt said, noting he had won the 2011 Indy pole with Alex Tagliani exactly five years earlier.
Mom moved in on May 1st, she didnt want to miss a lap, just in case I tried to kill myself again, Hinchcliffe said about his parents, who were on vacation when he crashed previous year and IndyCar had to scramble to get them to Indianapolis while their son was in surgery. Hinchcliffe, the 2013 Grand Prix of St. Petersburg victor and one of the sport’s most popular drivers, missed the final 11 races last season after a broken suspension part punctured his left leg right and almost caused him to bleed out the day after Indy 500 qualifying. But that’s what it takes to win the pole here. Hinchcliffe is on the pole in a Honda, which has not won a race this season. It also ends a 31-race pole drought for Honda, which dated to the 2014 race in Houston.
James Hinchcliffe wanted a new story to tell, and now he will tell it.
For Newgarden, it will be his first career front-row start at Indy. Each vehicle outside the top nine will get one qualifying attempt starting at 2:45 p.m. Team Penske’s Will Power came in third at 230.736. Sam Schmidt’s team got all three of its drivers in the top 10 with Mikhail Aleshin seventh and Oriol Servia 10th.
Juan Pablo Montoya, the reigning Indianapolis 500 champion is slated to be the 27th primary auto to qualify, in the No. 2 Verizon Team Penske Chevy.
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In an interview with the Star before the weekend, Hinchcliffe said he felt he and the team were peaking at just the right time.
