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Wickens surprised himself with pole in first IndyCar race

Robert Wickens St. Pete Pole

Robert Wickens celebrates winning the pole for the Friestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Photo: IndyCar

Chris Jones

To say that Robert Wickens is a surprise pole winner for Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg might be an understatement. In fact, even he admitted that he didn’t expect qualifying to go as well as it did.

“I honestly, like full disclosure, I didn’t feel that good actually in practice today,” Wickens revealed in the post-qualifying press conference. “We kind of made some changes overnight that didn’t do what we hoped it would, so we kind of had to go back to our car from Friday.”

Still, Wickens had relatively high expectations for himself entering the weekend. While he admitted that aiming for the pole would have been too much of a reach, he was very confident that he could at least start inside the top 10.

“Did I expect to qualify pole in my first IndyCar race? No. But I would have been disappointed if I was outside of the top 10 just because that’s the kind of person I am. I’m a perfectionist, I am kind of OCD when it comes down to my career and everything on that front,” he explained.

Wickens added that the conditions in qualifying were definitely a help to him. A steady drizzle hit the St. Petersburg street circuit during qualifying, and although the track was not wet enough for rain tires, conditions still proved to be plenty slippery.

But, Wickens detailed that his time in Europe - he has been racing in Europe since 2008 - meant he was used to conditions like the ones the drivers faced on Saturday, in which the track was changing dramatically on every lap.

“Sure, my experience must have helped, but my entire career I’ve always seemed to perform well in these type of conditions, the mixed, wet, dry, when there’s only one minute left and you get one more lap and the track is two seconds faster than the lap before, typically those have kind of been where I’ve seemed to excel,” Wickens asserted.

The 28-year-old Canadian finished by also revealing that he didn’t know his final lap would be good enough to take the pole until the very end, and his reaction to it on the pitlane - highlighted by a series of fist pumps on his way into the pits - reflected as much.

“All I can say is luckily the lap was good enough for pole, but I was very happy with the lap that I did, but I didn’t know it was going to be good enough for pole,” he added. “I was just hoping to kind of be into the top five and not the last of the (Firestone Fast Six) people because I think I was there for a decent part of the session trying to find some clear track.”

The result also has some history attached to it. Wickens, despite being 28 years old with a lot of success in other series, including DTM, on his resume, is making his very first IndyCar start this weekend.

Only two other times in the sport’s history has a driver won the pole in his first IndyCar start: Sebastien Bourdais, at St. Petersburg in 2003, and Nigel Mansell, at Surfers Paradise, Australia in 1993 - both drivers did so with Newman Haas Racing, coincidentally.

Wickens will try to emulate Mansell’s 1993 weekend, which subsequently saw him claim victory that day at Surfers Paradise, and complete his debut IndyCar race with a trip to Victory Lane.

Sunday’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg rolls off at 12:30 p.m. ET

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