Saturday, July 6, 2013

Andretti Autosport Qualifies 1-2-3 For Pocono

Marco Andretti ended another session atop of the speed charts except this time he was rewarded with one championship point and pole position for the Pocono Indy 400 Fueled by Sunoco. Andretti won the pole with a two lap average of 221.273 MPH, it's his second pole of the season and fourth of his career.

Behind Andretti will be two of his Andretti Autosport teammates Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe. EJ Viso had a first lap that would have put him fourth on the grid but an accident in turn one on his second lap ended the Venezuelans day and he will have to start from the back. Will Power qualified fourth after posting the second fastest lap one of the day. Triple Crown hopeful Tony Kanaan will start fifth ahead of fellow Brazilian Helio Castroneves. The Hondas of Scott Dixon, Takuma Sato and Simon Pagenaud take the next three positions with Simona de Silvestro rounding out the top ten, her best career start on an oval.

Rookie Tristan Vautier will start eleventh ahead of fellow Frenchman Sébastien Bourdais. Charlie Kimball was thirteenth fastest ahead of the Honda of James Jakes. Ed Carpenter will start fifteenth ahead of his successor at Sarah Fisher-Hartman Racing Josef Newgarden. Graham Rahal was seventeenth ahead of former Ganassi teammate Dario Franchitti. Pippa Mann out qualified her Dale Coyne teammate and they will start nineteenth and twentieth respectively. Sebastián Saavedra was twenty-first.

Alex Tagliani was the final driver to make a qualifying attempt and he had an accident on his first qualifying lap. The two drivers who had accidents, Tagliani and Viso, will be joined on the eighth row by Ryan Briscoe who did not make a qualifying attempt. Briscoe is in Lime Rock Park for the American Le Mans Series race. ABC's coverage of tomorrow's Pocono Indy 400 Fueled by Sunoco begins at noon ET.