IndyCar veteran Helio Castroneves has secured pole position for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, his third in succession around the Californian street course, after an action-packed qualifying session.
Despite being the only Chevrolet-powered driver to progress to the Firestone Fast Six, the Brazilian racer took the fight to the Honda-powered cars, eventually qualifying ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon by +0.1869s.
Dixon, who ended the opening and final practice sessions fastest throughout the weekend, was a strong contender for pole position.
The second row of the grid will consist of 2012 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe, who managed to qualify just ahead of reigning Indianapolis 500 champion Alexander Rossi.
The former Formula 1 racer has been competitive all weekend, and will start the race from the third row of the grid alongside RLL Racing’s Graham Rahal.
The qualifying session ran relatively incident-free, with the major talking point occurring during the first round of qualifying.
After slowing down significantly at Turn 11 to try and build up a gap between himself and team-mate Will Power, reigning champion Simon Pagenaud blocked eventual pole winner Castroneves.
Although Pagenaud eventually ended his group’s first round segment fastest with what was initially a new lap record, INDYCAR officials quickly penalised the Frenchman for his blocking of team-mate Castroneves.
This led to Pagenaud’s two timed laps being deleted, and saw the Penske racer suddenly eliminated from any further progression and therefore resigned to 21st and last on the grid.
In the second round of qualifying Charle Kimball was unable to progress any further, and will therefore start the race from seventh alongside the Penske of Josef Newgarden.
One of the shock exits of round two was Will Power, who is normally a strong contender for pole position at every race weekend.
Apart from topping second practice earlier in the weekend Power has been relatively uncompetitive alongside the rest of the field and will start ninth alongside Marco Andretti.
Rookie Ed Jones managed to qualify an impressive 13th for Dale Coyne Racing, and will start the 85-lap race just behind team-mate and St. Petersburg race winner Sebastien Bourdais.
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