The first qualifying session of the 2013 IndyCar season ended with some surprising results—a lot of the heavy hitters swung and missed, and some drivers who hadn’t been regulars in the final qualifying session ended up on top.
IndyCar uses a knock-out qualifying system, where the grid is split into two groups, and the fastest six from each group advance to the next round, whence the fastest six advance again to contest the pole.
This final group—the Firestone Fast Six—sometimes take it easy in the last session; after all, these drivers are guaranteed to be in the first three rows, and sometimes teams will opt to save a set of soft, sticky Red tires for the race instead o fusing them up trying to gain a couple of places on the grid.
That didn’t happen in qualifying for the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. Because Firestone had develop new compounds for both the regular (Black) and soft (Red) tires, teams had to try various set-ups. Some were quickest on scuffed Blacks, or new (“Sticker”) Blacks; some were quickest on the Reds but found they only lasted two laps.
Because of the tire uncertainty, every driver went all-out, both to learn about the tires and to secure the best possible starting position for the race.
Penske’s Will Power won the pole, his fourth in a row at St Pete; no surprise there. Takuma Sato, driving his first race for A.J. Foyt, took second, ahead of Simona di Silvestro, who hadn’t advanced past the first qualifying session in over a year.
James Hinchcliffe got a fourth-place grid spot for Andretti Autosport, followed by three-time St. Pete Grand Prix winner Helio Castroneves, who started fifth in 2012 and finished first. Last in the Fast Six was rookie Tristan Vautier, qualifying an IndyCar for the first time in his life.
Will Power mentioned how hard his engineers had to work to find the best set-up: “I’ve never made so many changes to a car through qualifying in between each round.
“It was kind of hard to find a balance all weekend, but it seemed very nice on used tires. Going into the final round was kind of straightforward; just go out there and give it everything I had.”
Verizon, Power’s main sponsor, also started sponsoring the pole award this season. Power joked that if he didn’t win the first Verizon Pole Award, “I would be fired, so I made sure I got it.”
