Will Power netted his fourth consecutive pole at the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, out-hustling Takuma Sato and a surging Simona de Silvestro to claim P1 for Sunday’s 110-lap main event (Noon ET, NBC Sports Network).
Power, who won at St. Pete in 2010 and was the fastest driver in yesterday’s practice sessions, threw down a lap of 1 minute, 1.2070 seconds around the 1.8-mile street course to earn his 30th career pole. With that, he became the first driver to score four consecutive poles at the same venue since Sebastien Bourdais pulled off the feat at Monterrey, Mexico from 2003 to 2006 in Champ Car.
“It’s been a very good start to the season,” Power told NBC Sports Network afterwards. “We just had to get through the [Firestone] Fast Six and look after the tires in the first two rounds, then see what we could do in the last one.”
Sato, who achieved A.J. Foyt Racing’s best qualifying result since 1998 (Billy Boat, Texas Motor Speedway), said that P2 was “a little [of a] shame” but was still happy with the result.
“The whole team did a fantastic job — not just for this weekend, but throughout the course of the winter,” said Sato.
But the biggest surprise came from De Silvestro, who struggled mightily with a Lotus engine in 2012 but now runs with Chevy-powered KV Racing Technology — and with the help of that stronger motor, she established herself as a potential podium threat for Sunday.
“The whole weekend has been going really well for us, and it’s really cool to finally get the results we wanted,” she said. “It’s unbelievable. We were right there with [Power] and Sato…It’s just really fun to be up there with them.”
James Hinchcliffe will start alongside De Silvestro in Row 2, while defending St. Pete champion Helio Castroneves and rookie racer Tristan Vautier make up Row 3.
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IZOD IndyCar Series – Honda GP of St. Petersburg
Starting Lineup
Row 1
12-Will Power
14-Takuma Sato
Row 2
78-Simona de Silvestro
27-James Hinchcliffe
Row 3
3-Helio Castroneves
55-Tristan Vautier
Row 4
25-Marco Andretti
1-Ryan Hunter-Reay
Row 5
6-Sebastian Saavedra
10-Dario Franchitti
Row 6
11-Tony Kanaan
22-Oriol Servia
Row 7
19-Justin Wilson
83-Charlie Kimball
Row 8
15-Graham Rahal
67-Josef Newgarden
Row 9
98-Alex Tagliani
16-James Jakes
Row 10
77-Simon Pagenaud
9-Scott Dixon
Row 11
7-Sebastien Bourdais
5-EJ Viso
Row 12
20-Ed Carpenter
4-JR Hildebrand
Row 13
18-Ana Beatriz
