Sato Wins Delayed St. Petersburg Pole

After a three hour and four minute delay for rain, Takuma Sato took the first pole of the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season and fourth of his career. After rain plagued the qualifying session, the track was dry by the time the Firestone Fast Six session started. The AJ Foyt Racing driver laid down a lap of 61.8686 seconds, nearly three tenths faster than Tony Kanaan in second.

Ryan Hunter-Reay will start third with Will Power starting fourth, over a half second back of Sato. Power had won four consecutive pole positions for the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. This is only the second time in seven St. Pete appearances that Power is not starting on the front row. Scott Dixon will start fifth in the first race of his title defense and joining him on row three will be Marco Andretti.

With the pole, Sato will start with the points lead in 2014 as he is awarded one point for pole. Sato led the points last year after winning at Long Beach and held the points lead into the Indianapolis 500. Sato's last pole came last year. He won the pole for the first race of the Houston doubleheader last October.

Rookies Carlos Muñoz and Jack Hawksworth will start on row four. Former Penske teammates and St. Pete winners Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves will start ninth and tenth respectively. Sebastián Saavedra will start eleventh with fellow Chevrolet driver Mike Conway starting twelfth in his first race for Ed Carpenter Racing.

Sébastien Bourdais will start thirteenth with fellow Frenchman Simon Pagenaud joining him on row seven. Mikhail Aleshin starts fifteenth on debut next to Justin Wilson. Wilson's Coyne teammate Carlos Huertas will start seventeenth on his IndyCar debut and will be joined on row eight by fellow Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya. James Hinchcliffe was in position to advance to round two but brought out a late red flag, negating his fastest two laps and dropping him to nineteenth. Charlie Kimball starts twentieth. Graham Rahal had an off in round one and will start twenty-first. Josef Newgarden will round out the field, starting twenty-second.

Coverage for the 2014 Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg will begin at 3:00 p.m. ET on ABC with green flag at 3:27 p.m. ET.