Will Power will start Sunday's Grand Prix of St. Petersburg from pole position after edging out Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud in the final stage of qualifying on Saturday.
For the second year in a row, Penske saw all four of its drivers make it through to the 'Fast Six' at St. Petersburg as Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon and Andretti Autosport's Ryan Hunter-Reay also made it through to the final shootout for pole.
After breaking his own lap record twice in the first two stages of qualifying, pole appeared to be Power's for the taking as he took provisional pole with his first lap on the red Firestone tyres.
However, Pagenaud looked to have upset his teammate when he went faster still, edging Power out by three-hundredths of a second with less than a minute to go until the session ended.
Power dug deep and managed to find yet more time though, going two-tenths of a second faster to take the first Verizon P1 Award of the 2016 IndyCar season.
Pagenaud held on to second place ahead of Helio Castroneves, while Juan Pablo Montoya made it a Penske 1-2-3-4 ahead of Dixon and Hunter-Reay, both of whom were unable to match the pace at the front of the field.
Dixon aside, the Chip Ganassi Racing drivers struggled for pace throughout the session. Charlie Kimball narrowly missed out on a Q2 berth, finishing seventh in the Group 2 running, while teammate Tony Kanaan languished down in 10th place. Max Chilton was pleased to qualify as the top rookie, but could only finish ninth in Group 1.
Graham Rahal will start seventh on Sunday after just being edged out by Hunter-Reay for a place in the Fast Six, while Sebastien Bourdais ended qualifying in eighth place ahead of James Hinchcliffe, who will start his comeback race from ninth on the grid.
After showing an impressive pace in practice and the first stage of qualifying, P10 went down as something of a disappointment for A. J. Foyt Enterprises' Jack Hawksworth. He finished just ahead of teammate Takuma Sato, while Josef Newgarden struggled to P12 on the grid.
