For the fourth time in as many years, Penske’s Will Power has started his IndyCar season by winning the pole for the Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg.
In typical fashion, he went out in the final qualifying session and scorched the track with a time no other driver could even approach—this time with a lap of 01:01.2070 at 105.87 mph, .37 seconds quicker than his nearest competitor, and besting his 2012 qualifying time by .1651 seconds and .285 mph.
“Yeah, that was interesting,” Power told the post-race press conference. “I never knew you could make 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.”
If Power’s results were completely predictable the makeup of the rest of the Firestone Fast Six was not.
Takuma Sato, driving for A.J. Foyt racing for the first time, was second quickest and quickest of the Honda-powered cars. Third was Simona di Silvestro, proving that her fast practice times were not a fluke. After two years driving for an underfunded team (and one of them saddled with the non-performing Lotus engine) the speedy Swiss miss finally has a fast car and a strong motor, and she demonstrated exactly what she can do with those tools.
An Andretti Autosports driver finished fourth, but not 2012 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, who was so quick in practice. Instead, it was James Hinchcliffe, who came within five thousandths of a second of equaling di Silvestro’s time.
