Josef Newgarden openly celebrated as teammate and final qualifier Will Power hit his rev limiter and slowed on his first lap, as he knew he had just claimed his second pole of the season.
Team Penske swept the top three spots on the grid in Friday’s qualifying session for the DXC Technology 600 at Texas Motor Speedway, with Newgarden leading the field to green on Saturday night.
Newgarden, coming off of a disappointing weekend at Detroit that saw him finish P9 and P15 across the weekend’s double header races, lead the charge for a reinvigorated Penske team. Chevrolet programs had struggled to match the pace of Honda teams in Detroit, but have shown that they can bounce back in Texas.
“That’s IndyCar racing, you have tough weekends and you have to pick yourself back up and get going again,” Newgarden told the NBCSN broadcast. “We can be satisfied at Team Penske with getting 1-2-3, that’s almost cooler than getting the pole.”
For Power, defending Texas winner and Verizon IndyCar Series points leader, a possible pole award was stolen away by hitting the rev limiter and slowing the end of his first lap. The resulting lap was not enough to best teammate Simon Pagenaud for P2, but instead sees Power place ahead of practice leader Robert Wickens in P4.
“Got hard limiter which just killed the speed,” Power said, before pointing to the obvious positive of the incident. “It’s because the car had actual speed, so what can you say. Just needed a bigger gear.”
Tony Kanaan, who shared the fastest time in Practice 1 with Wickens, seemed poised to maintain his pace before being outdone by Pagenaud. The 2004 Texas winner would settle for a P6 run.
Notably off pace in comparison to his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports teammate, James Hinchcliffe made his first appearance at an oval since failing to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. Running the same car from that bump day disappointment, Hinchcliffe told the broadcast crew ahead of the session “We are suffering from a bit of a slow car”.
After qualifying P15, Hinchcliffe had turned his attention completely to tomorrow night’s race.
“You can win from anywhere here in Texas,” he said.
Fans can catch all of the action of the DXC Technology 600 at Texas Motor Speedway Saturday, June 9 at 8 p.m. ET.
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