Helio Castroneves will start Sunday’s IndyCar race at Barber Motorsports Park from pole position after heading a Team Penske one-two-three in a weather-affected qualifying session.
The entire session was conducted as a race against approaching electrical storms, although in the end there was just 90 seconds of green flag time left for the Fast Six when the weather intervened.
Drivers had one minute’s notice that the session would end early, but worsening rain meant left little chance for anyone to depose Castroneves from his second pole in a week.
The Brazilian’s 1m07.1925s was just under 0.2 seconds quicker than team-mate Will Power, with Simon Pagenaud a further 0.2s in arrears.
“We worked during the break and each session we were improving,” Castroneves said.
“The car is really good. It’s so close, and in the end we made it. We’re excited.”
Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden and Tony Kanaan completed the first three rows on a grid that will feature just two Hondas in the top 12.
One of the Japanese manufacturer’s big hopes was a surprise early elimination, with two-time Barber winner Ryan Hunter-Reay failing to progress from the opening round and should start 18th.
The Andretti driver’s final lap was compromised badly when he got stuck behind Francesco Dracone, but even so he later admitted that he probably wouldn’t have qualified much higher than 10th on pure speed.
Joining him towards the rear of the field will be points leader Juan Pablo Montoya, who came into qualifying still trying to iron out some kinks in his set-up.
“We’ve been a little lost, to be honest,” he said after ending up on row eight.
“We’ve been throwing things at it trying to work out what we need to do and we’re still working at it. I think the set up for the race will be pretty good but for qualifying we paid a big penalty.”
