---Will Power scored his sixth pole of the year at Infineon Raceway on Saturday, leading a Team Penske 1-2-3. The Australian led every phase of qualifying, easily out-running teammates Ryan Briscoe in second and Helio Castroneves in third with a lap of 1:18.601.
“This qualifying session was as perfect as it could go,” said Power. “We were a little concerned after practice and didn’t know if we had the pace or not, but we made some good changes before qualifying. We were able to put a perfect lap together that was mistake free and hit all of the sectors and that was the key to posting the quickest lap. I am very happy with the efforts of Verizon Team Penske and having all three Team Penske cars up top today was really indicative of the work we have done. We were struggling a little bit on road courses so we have worked hard on improving the car and this is a result of the hard work.”
Briscoe was enthused to find himself on the front row with Power.
“It’s great," he said. "Team Penske’s come out strong here. We really need to keep pushing hard here. A top 3 starting point is the way to go.”
Castroneves was overflowing with emotion after turning in a strong qualifying performance.
“I’m extremely happy for Team Penske," he said. "We’re all working very close together. Will came and tested here and he gave us exactly what to do.”
Power's decisive pole came at the expense of his main championship rival, Dario Franchitti, who could do no better than fourth.
Franchitti's lap of 1:19.146 was more than a half-second--0.5447--behind Power.
"We worked really hard on getting both of the Target cars ready for qualifying and to have good balance on the Firestone black tires," said the Scot. "We tried putting the red tires on and the car was terrible. We tried to put up a fast lap and get the time we needed. We made a couple of changes throughout the session but just didn’t quite have it. We have a lot of work to do tonight because we are going to have to use the red tires for one segment of the race tomorrow."
Franchitti's teammate, Scott Dixon, ran fifth and Newman Haas Racing rookie James Hinchcliffe set the sixth-fastest time.
“The Target car was good this morning in cool weather but once the track heated up we really struggled with the grip," said Dixon. "I’m surprised we didn’t gain that much on red tires and Penske seemed to stay the same as what they were the morning, so it’s a little bit frustrating. We obviously messed up quite a bit there. I think this is just about our worst qualifying on road courses this year."
Hinchcliffe said sitting amongst the sport's top drivers during the post-qualifying press conference was somewhat surreal.
"I feel very out of place up there," he said with a laugh. "I sat at the back of the room for the first five minutes. It's great for us. The weekend hadn't been that great for us, and to pull ourselves out of that and qualify really well is something the team should be really proud of."
Behind Hinchcliffe, Long Beach winner Mike Conway salvaged a bit of hope for Andretti Autosport. With teammates Marco Andretti (14th), Ryan Hunter-Reay (19th) and Danica Patrick (25th) well down the running order, Conway won't have much help during Sunday's 80-lap race.
"The car is pretty good until the tires start to fall off," said Conway. "You can get about two or three laps with the red (Firestone) tires in qualifying. If you get a good rhythm, you can improve on your fourth lap. But it is tough. I'm sorry that qualifying didn't work out for the rest of the guys because they took my direction on the setup."
Dale Coyne Racing's mid-season improvement continues as Sebastien Bourdais qualified eighth, while E.J. Viso--like Conway at Andretti--was the only KV Racing entry with a positive qualifying session, ending up ninth.
KV's Takuma Sato (16th) struggled for grip, and Tony Kanaan (21st), who's had a generally poor qualifying record this year, continued the trend as he and new engineer John d#$% build a rapport.
"It's just disappointing," said the Brazilian. "We couldn't find a good balance for the car both yesterday and today and that translated to a bad qualifying run. We'll work overnight to find a solution for tomorrow's warmup and see how that goes. Hopefully we can do better than this for the race."
Possibly the most impressive qualifying performance of the day went Dreyer & Reinbold Racing rookie Ana Beatriz, who completed the top 10.
Beatriz not only earned her best start to date, but she also put herself ahead of highly lauded teammate Giorgio Pantano, who qualified 11th.
"I’m really happy that we were able to make it into the fast twelve," she said. "Unfortunately, in the second qualifying we didn’t quite get the grip that we had in the first session, but I’m happy with where we ended up. I’m really proud of the Ipiranga crew and I would like to thank Dreyer & Reinbold Racing for all of their hard work. We have been pushing really hard and it’s great to be in the top 10. We will push hard tomorrow during the race and hopefully we can get a good result.”
Alex Tagliani completed the Firestone Fast 12 for Sam Schmidt Motorsports, and after qualifying on the second row last year, the French-Canadian wasn't feeling overly optimistic.
“It was alright, but I knew the lap time we needed to do needed to be in the 78s (seconds) and we just couldn’t get there,” he said. “The frustrating thing is, we came here without testing. Everybody else here came here to test the new tire and, with no time, we needed to do some miracles."
Ganassi Racing Graham Rahal was the first driver to miss the cut, and like Tagliani, wasn't in a happy place after qualifying.
“We just missed [on the setup] a little bit," he said. "The car was incredibly loose. It was overboard. It was an absolute handful. This hasn’t been one of our best weekends so we’ll have to do a lot of work tonight”
Of the remaining runners, Newman Haas Racing's Oriol Servia had a miserable time on the way to qualifying a rather uncharacteristic 18th. “You just miss a couple of tenths of a second and you miss the cut," he said. "That’s the story. It’s just frustrating. You obviously want to start up front.”
Local favorite JR Hildebrand was mired back in 20th, while Simon Pagenaud, with only handful of laps around the 2.2-mile track, qualified 22nd while deputizing for Simona de Silvestro. Ho-Pin Tung will start 24th for his first IndyCar Series race, and Charlie Kimball, after running competitively at the last few rounds, had no answers for the tricky 12-turn track.
