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| Pole-sitter Takuma Sato looks to start 2014 with his second career victory. |
Takuma Sato has been quick all weekend on the streets of St. Petersburg and it paid off on Saturday when the Japanese driver picked up his fourth career pole position, running the fastest lap of the weekend, a 61.8686. Sato's speed has never been an issue, it has been his ability to bring a car home at the end of a race that has kept the once factory Honda driver in Formula One driver from being a contender for a championship. Let's see if he can start the 2014 championship on the right foot.
Starting second is Tony Kanaan. Kanaan's struggles in qualifying have been well-documented but if there is one course Kanaan always runs well at it is St. Pete. In nine St. Pete starts, Kanaan has five podiums, seven top fives and eight top tens. Ryan Hunter-Reay starts third as he and Andretti Autosport are running their first race with Honda engines since the 2011 season finale after two seasons with Chevrolet. Will Power starts fourth. The Australian had won four consecutive poles at St. Pete. The Australian has never started worse than sixth in his seven St. Pete starts.
Defending IndyCar champion Scott Dixon starts fifth. He has three runner-up finishes on the streets of St. Pete. Marco Andretti will start sixth. The Pennsylvanian struggled early in the weekend to find speed but found it on the drying track during qualifying. His rookie teammate Carlos Muñoz just missed out on his first Fast Six appearance. Next to Muñoz will be fellow rookie Jack Hawksworth. The Bryan Herta Autosport driver won the Indy Lights race at St. Pete last year.
Rounding out the top ten are past St. Pete winners and former Penske teammates Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves. Briscoe did not have a ride for St. Pete last year while Castroneves average finish at St. Pete is 6.375 with three victories and five podiums. Sebastián Saavedra starts eleventh with Mike Conway starting twelfth. Both are driving their first race with new teams. Saavedra with KV and Conway with Ed Carpenter Racing.
Frenchmen Sébastien Bourdais and Simon Pagenaud start on row seven after missing out on advancing from round one. Pagenaud's rookie teammate Mikhail Aleshin starts fifteenth on his IndyCar debut. Justin Wilson starts sixteenth with his rookie teammate Carlos Huertas in seventeenth. Juan Pablo Montoya joins his fellow Colombian on row nine. Montoya's average finish on street circuits is 15.5.
James Hinchcliffe was all set to advance from round one before he brought out a red flag, dropping him to nineteenth on the grid. The defending St. Pete race winner started fourth last year. Ninth is the worst starting position a winner has come from at St. Pete. Charlie Kimball starts twentieth. Kimball's average starting position at St. Pete is 19.75. Graham Rahal starts twenty-first after having an off in qualifying ruin his chance to start up front. He was second quickest on Friday. Josef Newgarden rounds out the field in twenty-second as the Tennessean starts his third season in IndyCar.
The Indy Lights season also begins on Sunday. Qualifying was rained out on Saturday and the field will be set on combined practice results. Gabby Chaves starts on pole driving for Belardi Auto Racing. Andretti Autosport drivers Zach Veach and Matthew Brabham start second and third. The 2013 AutoGP champion, Italian Vittorio Ghirelli starts fourth driving for Team Moore Racing. Scott Anderson starts fifth driving for Fan Force United.
Schmidt Peterson drivers Jack Harvey and Luiz Razia start sixth and seventh. Chaves' teammate Alexandre Baron starts eighth. Zach Meyer starts ninth driving for Team Moore. Juan Piedrahita rounds out the top ten ahead of his Schmidt Peterson teammate Juan Pablo Garcia. Bryan Herta Autosport driver Lloyd Read rounds out the field in twelfth. The Indy Lights race will take place at 12:47 p.m. ET.
ABC's coverage of the first round of the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag at 3:27 p.m. ET.
