Helio Castroneves dominated the final heat race Saturday night, leading flag to flag and picking up nine more points to pad his championship lead and pole position for today's Iowa Corn Indy 250 but an engine change will forced the Brazilian to take a ten grid spot penalty, dropping Castroneves to eleventh.
Elevated to first from second will be Will Power who looks to make a charge for the championship. The Australian is currently tenth in the points standings. James Hinchcliffe will roll off second ahead of his Andretti Autosport teammate Marco Andretti who entered Iowa third in the point standings. Ed Carpenter will start fourth. He finished second in heat two to advance to the final. Tony Kanaan rounds out the top five with heat two winner Graham Rahal starting in sixth positions.
Oriol Serviá starts seventh in his second race for Panther Racing. Ryan Briscoe raced for Panther Racing at Milwaukee last week leaving Serviá without a ride. Starting eighth will be Simon Pagenaud who finished fifth last year after starting dead last. The Hondas of Alex Tagliani and Justin Wilson round out the top ten. Castroneves starts eleventh ahead of second place in the championship Ryan Hunter-Reay who failed to transfer from heat one. Last year's Indy Lights champion Tristan Vautier starts thirteenth ahead of fellow Honda drivers Charlie Kimball and Scott Dixon. Dixon won heat one and finished fifth in the final but is serving a ten grid spot penalty for an engine change. EJ Viso will join Dixon on row eight.
Takuma Sato starts seventeenth after an engine change. He finished second in heat one and seventh in the final. Sebastián Saavedra starts eighteenth ahead of his Dragon teammate Sébastien Bourdais in nineteenth. Simona de Silvestro starts twentieth after a dreadful heat race which saw the Swiss driver finish three laps down. Dario Franchitti didn't finish three laps down but did not have any more success than de Silvestro did in his heat and starts twenty-first. Josef Newgarden starts twenty-second after an engine change ahead of fellow Hondas Ana Beatriz and James Jakes. Beatriz and Jakes also changed engines. Jakes suffered an accident at the end of heat two but walked away.
Weather forecast for the Iowa Corn Indy 250 calls for mostly cloudy skies with a high of 83 degrees Fahrenheit and a chance of precipitation at 15% with the likelihood increasing to 40% during the race. ABC's broadcast begins at 2:30 p.m. ET with green flag around 3:05 p.m. ET.
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