Despite Will Power’s tremendous ride to pole position for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, there was an sense of mixed emotions within the Team Penske garage after a topsy-turvy qualifying session for the four-car outfit.
With Power and Josef Newgarden comfortably progressing to the Firestone Fast Six, reigning champion Simon Pagenaud and veteran Helio Castroneves were both eliminated after only the first round of qualifying.
This therefore leaves a sizeable gap between Power and Newgarden in first and fourth respectively to Pagenaud and Castroneves who will line up 14th and 16th.
"We're certainly disappointed, but that doesn't mean we're going to pack up and go home,” explained reigning champion Pagenaud.
“The team and I will go to work and figure out how we can improve. They are the best in the business.
“We have our work cut out for us, but once the race starts, all sorts of things can happen.”
Castroneves is also feeling optimistic ahead of the 110-lap race, one which the Brazilian veteran has won multiple times throughout his long career.
"We didn't miss by much, but that's how close it is in this series,” commented Castroneves on how close he was to progressing into the next round in qualifying.
“Fortunately, I have the Chevy guys behind me and I have all the confidence in the world that they can give me a car to go to the front.
“Anything can happen. We came up a little short, but I think we have a great race car.”
Although big names such as Pagenaud, Castroneves and Marco Andretti were eliminated during the early stages of qualifying, Power still managed to uphold the Team Penske and Chevrolet honour as he stormed to his seventh pole around the Florida street course.
Throughout the weekend Honda had shown renewed pace in comparison to that of Chevrolet, with Scott Dixon in particular looking like the man to beat for pole position.
But Power showed that the battle at the top between the two manufacturers could well be a fascinating affair in 2017 as he pipped Dixon and Honda to pole by just +0.1579 seconds.
“Taking the risk on just doing one lap was good for me, I definitely had a bit more meat on the tyres in the last round,” explained Power.
“We worked on the car too. Made a bit of a wrong setup change for the last round, and kind of just made it, and went back and did something else. So yeah, very happy to be on pole. It's a really tight competition.”
