Team Penske's Will Power will lead the field away from pole position for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio after a stunning final lap in qualifying.
Power shocked the field by leaping to the top of the timesheets with a 1:05.156 right at the end of the session, beating recently re-signed Andretti Autosport's Alexander Rossi by almost four-tenths of a second.
Rossi initially jumped to the top of the timesheet, but Power denied the Californian to claim his 57th pole position, the Australian is now just 10 behind Mario Andretti on the all-time pole positions.
It's another great day for Team Penske as they lock out the second row with championship leader Josef Newgarden in third ahead of Simon Pagenaud in the #22 Menards-Chevrolet.
Four-time series champion Sebastien Bourdais continued to show his good form around the Mid-Ohio circuit, putting his Dale Coyne Racing #18 Sealmaster car in fifth place, only doing the one-run on scuffed Firestone Reds.
Chip Ganassi's Felix Rosenqvist will join Bourdais on the third-row, the Swede looked to struggle in practice like team-mate Scott Dixon but managed to find his superb qualifying form to secure another place in the top six.
It was a tough battle to secure a place inside the Firestone Fast Six, getting left on the outside was Colton Herta who had looked to have pace having topped the practice times on Friday. The 19 year-old will line up seventh after narrowly missing out on the pole shootout by just 0.003s.
Reigning series champion Dixon managed to recover from getting lost on the set-up through practice and have a very loose rear end. Despite the improvements made, it wasn't enough to qualify higher than eighth in the #9 PNC Bank car.
Meyer Shank Racing's Jack Harvey performed well on his first race since Road America, put his #60 AutoNation car in ninth place, following behind and rounding out the top 10 Andretti Autosport's Ryan Hunter-Reay.
The Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports pair of James Hinchcliffe and Marcus initially looked fast on the Firestone Red tyres, but it just wasn't enough to see them progress any further. Hinchcliffe will line up 11th with Ericsson 12th.
Ed Carpenter Racing's Spencer Pigot endured a rough qualifying session and couldn't get his #21 AutoGeek car out of the first group in Q1.
After scoring success at a similar track earlier in the season at Barber Motorsports Park, fortunes swiftly turned the opposite way at Mid-Ohio for Rahal-Letterman-Lanigan Racing.
Both cars suffered a torrid time in qualifying after both Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato failed to make it out of the first group.
Despite both drivers getting on the softer red Firestone tyres, there appeared to be a lack of pace which will see them start towards the back of the field.
The 90-lap Honda Indy 200 is scheduled to get underway at 16:00 local time.






Discussion about this post