For the third consecutive race at Texas Motor Speedway, Will Power will lead the field to the green flag as he won the pole for the Firestone 600 with a speed of 218.519 mph. It marks Power’s fourth pole of the season as he looks to bounce back following a wreck at Detroit.
“I drew number one obviously this morning in the drivers meeting. I was a little worried about the conditions, he stated. “It kind of stayed consistent over the whole run of qualifying. I was really happy to get pole honestly. I felt if I could be in the top five, I’d be happy. Starting first, really happy about that. The race, it’s going to be interesting. You got all this stuff you can put on to add downforce if you want. But it’s quite draggy, so you lose a bit of speed. It’s going to be about finding the right compromise for speed loss versus grip. I guess we’ll try some things tonight and see how it all stacks up.
“I think you’ll see a few different variations of what people bolt on as far as body kits go for the race. I’ve always liked this place a lot. It’s fun to drive. It’s not just stuck. The car moves around. It’s hard. I feel like it’s a real driver’s oval. I enjoy that. My wife’s from here, so I got the whole family out here. I got the pressure to always do well. Otherwise, won’t be invited to dinner.”
The Penske Racing dominance continued on Friday evening as Roger Penske will see all of his four drivers start the event in the top-five. Simon Pagenaud, who led the Friday morning practice, was second quickest.
“The car is really nice actually,” he commented. “It’s a nice carry over from Indy. Just missed it by a little bit, right? I tried to push it as hard as I could. Yeah, we dropped a bit on the second lap, but hat off to the Team Penske boys. They’re giving us fantastic cars. It makes our lives super easy as a driver.Tonight is going to be a great session, practice in the cool condition. It’s going to be interesting to see how the cars behave in race trim. But this morning was surprisingly pretty good for us on the No. 22 car.”
Helio Castroneves, who visited victory lane at Texas last year, will start third ahead of Duel in Detroit Race 1 winner Carlos Munoz and current points leader Juan Pablo Montoya.
“We took all the downforce out of the car and see where it runs,” Montoya stated. “I think we are pretty good. The balance is not there yet. We need some work to do to be a little quicker, but it is what it is. The aero kits drive a little different. We are just trying to figure out what we need to do and where we need to run. We have options to run a lot more downforce if we want to. It is a big penalty so you have to figure out what is the best compromise.”
Coming off a podium finish at Detroit, Graham Rahal will start sixth followed by Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Charlie Kimball and Sage Karam.
1. (1) Will Power, Chevrolet, 218.519
2. (22) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 218.441
3. (3) Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 218.069
4. (26) Carlos Munoz, Honda, 217.831
5. (2) Juan Pablo Montoya, Chevrolet, 217.530
6. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 217.438
7. (9) Scott Dixon, Chevrolet, 217.411
8. (10) Tony Kanaan, Chevrolet, 217.337
9. (83) Charlie Kimball, Chevrolet, 217.323
10. (8) Sage Karam, Chevrolet, 216.920
11. (27) Marco Andretti, Honda, 216.876
12. (7) James Jakes, Honda, 216.864
13. (14) Takuma Sato, Honda, 216.686
14. (67) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 216.210
15. (20) Ed Carpenter, Chevrolet, 216.197
16. (19) Tristan Vautier, Honda, 215.929
17. (41) Jack Hawksworth, Honda, 215.621
18. (11) Sebastien Bourdais, Chevrolet, 215.303
19. (5) Ryan Briscoe, Honda, 215.162
20. (98) Gabby Chaves, Honda, 215.146
21. (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 215.026
22. (18) Pippa Mann, Honda, 214.654
23. (4) Stefano Coletti, Chevrolet, 211.930
