 |
| Sebastián Saavedra Awarded Pole After Wet Qualifying |
It's Sebastián Saavedra.
The Colombian was awarded pole position after Ryan Hunter-Reay brought out a red flag for an accident entering the front straightaway during a very wet final round of qualifying. With Hunter-Reay losing his fastest two laps, Jack Hawksworth will join Saavedra on row one and has his first career front row start.
Hunter-Reay drops back to third with Simon Pagenaud joining him on row two. Will Power and Scott Dixon qualified on row three.
Saavedra's pole winning time was a 83.8822 second lap. The final two rounds of qualifying were marred by rain with the final session being delay nearly ten minutes due to a heavy down pour.
Sébastien Bourdais qualified seventh with Juan Pablo Montoya joining him on row four. Tony Kanaan qualified ninth with Hélio Castroneves rounding out the top ten. James Hinchcliffe and Graham Rahal qualified eleventh and twelfth respectively.
Marco Andretti qualified thirteenth after being bumped by Castroneves and Saavedra on the final lap of group one. He will be joined by Ryan Briscoe on row seven. Josef Newgarden qualified fifteenteenth after back-to-back appearances in the Fast Six. Takuma Sato qualified sixteenth. Carlos Huertas qualified seventeenth with his Dale Coyne Racing teammate Justin Wilson qualifying eighteenth. Carlos Muñoz qualified nineteenth and Martin Plowman rounded out the top twenty.
Muñoz starts directly ahead of his teammate Franck Montagny who qualified twenty-first. Oriol Servià will join Montagny on row Charlie Kimball qualified 23rd with Mike Conway and Mikhail Aleshin rounding out the field. Aleshin was set to advance to round two but lost his two fastest laps for interference.
The inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis will be on ABC with coverage beginning at 3:30 p.m. and green flag around 3:50 p.m.
