Team Penske was on the verge of closing out a dominating romp through the IndyCar season with a new champion in Simon Pagenaud and a stranglehold on the top of the series standings. With double the usual race points available in Sunday’s 85-lapper, Power is the only competitor mathematically eligible to beat the Frenchman, who has led the points since the second race of the season. His #12 team’s commitment to outfoxing Pagenaud and his #22 program began in qualifying when, upon noticing that the softer-compound red Firestone tires were struggling (James Hinchcliffe went as far as to say that they couldn’t make it through a full qualifying lap), they sent Power out on the harder blacks. “That’s what it was all about, to show if we are to win the championship, we deserved it on many points”. It provided a bookend to the season since the Penske foursome accomplished the same feat in qualifying at the season opener, the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
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“[Qualifying] was about preparing the auto for the red Firestone tyres”, Pagenaud explained, “We know I’m always more comfortable on those tyres, so I can always extract a little bit more from myself”.
“We had good balance on the vehicle”.
Helio Castroneves, the 2008 Sonoma victor, will start second in the #3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet after logging a lap of 1m 16.4134s in the Firestone Fast Six.
Helio Castroneves, the 2008 Sonoma victor, will start second in the No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet after logging a lap of 1:16.4134 (112.362 mph) in the Firestone Fast Six.
Power, a three-time Sonoma race victor and five-time pole sitter at the track, was fourth in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet (1:16.6659, 111.992 mph).
Teammate and fellow championship contender Will Power knows the same thing, and with Pagenaud comfortably outpacing both his Penske teammates and the field throughout the weekend, he’ll likely need to take advantage of an alternate strategy to equal his 2014 IndyCar title. “It’s a long race”.
“It feels great. Most importantly up until now there was no thinking about the race, no thinking about the outcome”. It’s going to be really interesting the way the tires go.
The pole position is the 245th in Indy vehicle history for Team Penske, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this season. After leading every session and setting a track record en route to his series-leading seventh pole of 2016, he has more than enough reason to believe he’ll be able to cap off what would be his first championship season with a win.
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Americans Ryan Hunter-Reay (1:17.0569) and Alexander Rossi ( 1:17.0817) rounded out the top five on a day when Andretti Autosport backed up its pace shown in testing at the 2.385-mile road course last week.
