In a one-two sweep for Team Penske, Simon Pagenaud would top the charts in qualifying with a lap of one minute and 5.7679 seconds. Pagenaud is searching for his first win of the season since leaving Schmidt Peterson Motorsports to join Penske during the off-season.
“Thanks to my crew for the preparations and it’s exciting to get a superspeedway pole,” Pagenaud said. “Qualifying is one thing. It’s a reward for performance. We have a 500-mile race and hopefully I can reward the team for its hard work. It’s a brand new team that is gelling really well.”
For Pagenaud, this marks his first career pole award. For Team Penske, it marks the fifth straight race that the team has occupied the front row. Helio Castroneves will start in the second spot, after posting a lap a tenth off of his teammate.
Marco Andretti would qualify third quickest as the only Honda within the top-eight in qualifying, followed by Ed Carpenter and Juan Pablo Montoya.
“We maximized everything in qualifying, and I’m really happy with the race car for the long race. That’s the important thing,” Andretti said.
Tony Kanaan will start sixth, followed by Texas Motor Speedway winner Scott Dixon, Will Power, Takuma Sato and Sage Karam. Honda Indy Toronto winner Josef Newgarden was 12th quickest.
The MAVTV 500 is scheduled to start at 4 pm EST at Auto Club Speedway.
