The four lap average pole speed of 230.76 is the second-fastest of the DW12 era, behind Ed Carpenter’s 231 miles per hour effort in 2014, though practice speeds were significantly down from past year, when qualifying was slowed by rain and a series of frightening crashes. The last Indy 500 pole for Honda also came with Schmidt Peterson and then-driver Alex Tagliani.
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Just as he said that, his father arrived to hug his son. 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.
“It doesn’t mean much today”, he said.
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. On the third lap of his run in the non Fast Nine session, his auto ran over a plastic trash bag at speed. I kinda feel bad for Josef, but not THAT bad. “I try to remind myself it’s not just about today’s battle, it’s about the war, and we’ve got to try and get that done next week in the ‘500.’ But it was still a lot of fun just to be up there and have this opportunity to compete”.
When Hunter-Reay’s speed was posted, Newgarden started trading high-fives with his crew members but then had to watch Hinchcliffe pull off of the most memorable pole-winning runs in recent years.
Defending series champion and 2015 Indy pole victor Scott Dixon needed his crew scramble to change engines in 64 minutes – a job that normally takes three hours – after the No. 9 vehicle developed a mechanical problem in practice.
After Newgarden was Ryan Hunter-Reay, Townsend Bell and Carloz Munoz. A special congratulations to “Hinch” and Ryan for putting it all on the line for the pole and front-row starting positions.
“The Arrow Electronics auto was an absolute smoke show out there, it was right on the edge”, Hinchcliffe told trackside reporters.
Defending race champion Juan Pablo Montoya had an interesting day. There’s still one big thing to check off the box before we start talking “movie rights”, and that’s next Sunday. He drove the auto into the pits where team members checked his vehicle. “The bag was there”. I think it’s going to be really, really tight for pole. I just hit it and lost all of the front air from under the auto. I got on the brakes, trying not to hit the wall. I think it’s fast.
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“It was a great run”.
