James Hinchcliffe completed his remarkable comeback Sunday by beating out American Josef Newgarden for the Indianapolis 500 pole. Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ James Hinchcliffe, who was the fastest qualifier with a four-lap average of 230.946mph, was fastest in two sectors but was nearly always close to the best, and Andretti’s Marco Andretti was the top driver in the 19th and final sector.
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Newgarden will be the middle of the front row, with an average speed of 230.700, while Ryan Hunter-Reay will be on the outside of row 1.
It was the fourth closest differential between first and second in the race’s 100-year history.
After one-off SPM driver Oriol Servia impressed earlier in the day by qualifying tenth, leading those outside the Fast Nine (though, at 229.06 miles per hour, his time would be slower than any set in the final shootout), the team had finally found a setup and track conditions that worked well together.
“We’ve got some really good people doing the calculations, and it worked out for us”, said Schmidt, whose teams put Alex Tagliani on the 500 pole in 2011.
James Hinchcliffe watched the Indianapolis 500 past year from his hospital bed.
A year after nearly bleeding to death in an Indianapolis 500 practice wreck, IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe wins the pole for 2016. Bell was barely ahead of Power (231.339) and Andretti drivers Ryan Hunter-Reay (231.284) and Marco Andretti (231.255).
The lead changed twice in the final 40 minutes, almost changed two more times in the last 25 minutes and included Russia’s Mikhail Aleshin bumping his way into the shootout on the final run of the day. “If we keep that trend up we’re looking pretty good heading for Memorial Day”. “I didn’t think anything would get better than five years ago. She said she wasn’t missing a single lap just in case I tried to kill myself again and luckily that wasn’t the case”.
The Australian took the outside spot on Row Two alongside a pair of Andretti Autosport drivers Bell and Colombian Carlos Munoz.
“It was a tough pill to swallow”, Newgarden said. “It’s great to start on the front row of the 100th Running of the Indy 500”. It is Hinchcliffe’s first “500” pole, and the ninth for Honda at the historic Brickyard.
The last practice before Saturday’s first day of qualifying – dubbed “Fast Friday” because it’s usually when the top lap speeds are produced as teams trim out their cars and run four-lap qualifying simulations – lived up to its name. Simon Pagenaud, the current Verizon IndyCar Series points leader who’s won the last three races on the schedule, drew the second spot in the No. 22 Menards Team Penske Chevy.
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But the freaky ride from that group was turned in by defending 500 victor Juan Pablo Montoya.
