Saturday, August 3, 2013

Hunter-Reay on Mid-Ohio Pole

Ryan Hunter-Reay won his third pole of the 2013 season with a lap of 1:05.3519 seconds. He held off late attempts from the likes of Will Power, Scott Dixon and Marco Andretti. Power missed pole by 0.1840 seconds with Dixon 0.1692 back of the Australian. Andretti qualified fourth, a little over a half second back of his teammate. Charlie Kimball was a second off of Hunter-Reay and will start fifth with his Ganassi teammate Dario Franchitti joining him on row three.

Justin Wilson was bumped at the final second in round two by Marco Andretti and will start seventh with Belle Isle race two winner Simon Pagenaud joining him on row four. Simona de Silvestro will start ninth and will be joined by James Jakes, who turns twenty-six on Sunday, on row five. Rookie Tristan Vautier and EJ Viso round out the top twelve.

James Hinchcliffe failed to make it out of round one and will start thirteenth with Sébastien Bourdais joining him on row seven. Championship points leader Helio Castroneves will start fifteenth with Long Beach winner Takuma Sato in sixteenth. James Davison starts seventeenth in his IndyCar debut with Oriol Servià joining him on row nine for his first IndyCar race since Iowa. Josef Newgarden was fastest in final practice but will start nineteenth next to Indianapolis 500 winner in twentieth. Sebastián Saavedra and Graham Rahal make up row eleven with Ed Carpenter and Luca Filippi rounding out the field. Filippi had a time good enough to advance to the Fast Twelve but since Filippi brought out a red flag he lost his two fastest lap times, dropping him to slowest in group two.

IndyCar qualifying can be seen at 5:00 p.m. ET on NBCSN. NBCSN's coverage of tomorrow's Honda 200 from Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag around 3:40 p.m.