In a qualifying session that saw Dixon and Pagenaud fail to make it to the Fast 12, Sebastián Saavedra make the Fast 12 but not his teammate Sébastien Bourdais and Hunter-Reay and Franchitti fail to make the Fast 6, somethings went as usual. Will Power won his fourth consecutive pole at St. Petersburg with a time of 1:01.2070.
Takuma Sato kept the pressure on Power and qualified 2nd, 0.3706 seconds back. Simona de Silvestro qualified 3rd, a career best for the Swiss driver. James Hinchcliffe was the top Andretti Autosport driver in 4th, defending St. Pete race winner Helio Castroneves was 5th and rookie Tristan Vautier was 6th.
Americans Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay just missed the Fast 6 and will make up row four. Sebastián Saavedra will start a career best 9th and Dario Franchitti will join him on row five, with Tony Kanaan and Oriol Serviá rounding out the top 12.
Notables not to make it out of round one of qualifying were Justin Wilson, Scott Dixon, Sébastien Bourdais, Simon Pagenaud, Graham Rahal and Josef Newgarden.
Chevrolet swept Round 1 Group 1 of qualifying, while they split the 6 transfer spots from group 2 evenly with Honda. With the shutout in group 1, Hondas will take up positions 13th-20th on the grid.
Forecast for tomorrow calls for a temperature of 73 degrees Fahrenheit with winds blowing at 17mph and chance of precipitation at 20% when the green flag flies. Twice has the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg been won from pole position (2007 and 2010). The worse a winner has started from at St. Pete is 9th (2005 and 2008). The morning warm-up is scheduled for 8:45 AM with the green flag scheduled for 12:40 PM tomorrow.
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