Saturday, May 31, 2014

Morning Warm-Up: Belle Isle 2014 Race One

Hélio Castroneves looks for his third career Belle Isle victory from his third career Belle Isle pole position
Hélio Castroneves became the sixth different pole winner through six races in 2014. The Brazilian laid down a lap of 1:17.5362 minutes, over four-tenths faster than the second fastest time in the Fast Six. It is Castroneves' 39th career pole and third career pole at Belle Isle. He won from pole at Belle Isle in 2001. James Hinchcliffe will start second. This is Hinchcliffe's eighth time starting second in his career as he looks for that elusive first career pole.

Jack Hawksworth starts third, his third career top five start in six races. Mike Conway joins his fellow Brit on row two. This is Conway's first top ten start of 2014. Ryan Briscoe starts fifth. The last time the Australian started in the top five was the 2012 season finale at Fontana where he started second and finished seventeenth. Juan Pablo Montoya made his first career Fast Six and starts sixth. In his previous two Belle Isle starts, Montoya started each from pole position and finished seventeenth and eighteenth.

Sébastien Bourdais starts seventh after missing out on the Fast Six by 0.0630 seconds. Former Belle Isle winner Tony Kanaan starts eighth. Kanaan won from fourth in 2007. Graham Rahal starts ninth. It is his first top ten start since Sonoma last season. Scott Dixon rounds out the top ten. The furthest back a winner has come from at Belle Isle was tenth by Danny Sullivan in 1993. Carlos Muñoz and Carlos Huertas make up an all-Colombian row six. This was the first time career appearance in the second round of qualifying for Carlos Huertas.

Sebastián Saavedra will start thirteenth and will be joined on row seven by Josef Newgarden.  Takuma Sato ended up fifteenth on the grid. Will Power starts a surprising sixteenth, his worst career start at Belle Isle. Simon Pagenaud was second fastest in group one but lost his fastest two lap after being penalized for impeding Montoya during the session. It dropped him from advancing to seventeenth on the grid. Marco Andretti starts eighteenth.

Justin Wilson starts nineteenth with Charlie Kimball starting twentieth. Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay brushed the wall during the group one session, ending his qualifying session early. Hunter-Reay will roll off from twenty-first for race one. Mikhail Aleshin rounds out the grid in twenty-second.

Coverage of race one from Belle Isle begins at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC.