Dario Franchitti will start Sunday’s IndyCar race at Long Beach from pole position after triumphing in a hard-fought qualifying session.
Ganassi driver Franchitti, who came into the Long Beach weekend last in the points standings after two disastrous opening races, used his final flying lap to deliver a 1m07.2379s that improved the benchmark laid down by Ryan Hunter-Reay by 0.0555 seconds.
Hunter-Reay’s time was still good enough to keep him on the front row for Andretti, although Penske’s Will Power was only a further 0.05s in arrears.
The Australian will start from third alongside Takuma Sato, who had briefly led the times with a couple of minutes remaining before the final flurry of quick laps.
Mike Conway converted his early-weekend form into a place in the Fast Six, finishing up fifth-fastest for his series return in the third Rahal Letterman entry, with Helio Castroneves set to line up alongside him.
The Ganassi team could have had two cars in the top six had Scott Dixon not spun and stopped in the middle of Turn 1 late in the first qualifying phase.
The New Zealander was fourth-fastest in his group at that point, but his stranded car – joined moments later by that of Oriol Servia, who arrived in the corner to find the road completely blocked and deliberately drove into the barriers to avoid Dixon – triggered a red flag.
Under series rules, that cost Dixon his two best laps and consigned him to the back of the grid, and Servia, having been deemed equally responsible, was dealt the same punishment.
Dixon’s exit should have opened the door for Marco Andretti to advance to the next phase, but he was under scrutiny from race control as well for interfering with JR Hildebrand while the latter was on a fast lap. Andretti, too, was penalised, and Hildebrand progressed in his place.
