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| Will Power will try to make it three consecutive victories for Team Penske with three different drivers |
Takuma Sato and Graham Rahal make it an all-Honda row two. This was only the second time Sato had made the final round of qualifying at Mid-Ohio. He started third in his first visit to the track in 2010 but finished 25th after an accident in turn four. This matches Rahal's best career starting position at his home race. He stared fourth in 2009 and finished eighth. Rahal finished fourth in last year's Mid-Ohio race. He is looking for his seven consecutive top ten finish. Championship rivals Hélio Castroneves and Scott Dixon will start on row three. This is Castroneves' worst start on a road/street circuit since he started 16th in the season opener at St. Petersburg. Castroneves has won three times from fifth on the grid but all three of those victories came on temporary circuits. He did it twice at St. Petersburg and once at Edmonton. Dixon's first Mid-Ohio victory came from sixth on the grid in 2007. All five of Dixon's Mid-Ohio victories have come from a different position on the starting grid.
Simon Pagenaud missed out on the final round of qualifying by 0.0448 seconds and this is the third time he has started seventh this season. His best finish from seventh on the grid in his career is fourth, which has happened on three occasions, most recently at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May and the other two times were in 2007 at Mont-Tremblant and Edmonton. James Hinchcliffe will join the Frenchman on row four. Hinchcliffe has started in the top ten for every road and street course race this season but this is his first time starting on row four in 2017. Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay make it an all-Andretti Autosport row five. Rossi finished second at Toronto two weeks ago and he is looking for consecutive top five finishes for the first time in his career. Hunter-Reay is looking for his third consecutive top ten finish. Three of his four top ten finishes in 2017 came with him starting outside the top ten including his last two top ten finishes.
Conor Daly advanced to the second round of qualifying for the first time this season and for the first time since Toronto last year. This was only the second time A.J. Foyt Racing made the second round of qualifying in 2017. Carlos Muñoz started 11th in the season opener at St. Petersburg. Esteban Gutiérrez made the second round of qualifying for the first time in his IndyCar career. Today's race comes five years and one day since Gutiérrez's most recent victory, a GP2 sprint race win at the Hungaroring. Gutiérrez has finished ahead of his teammate Ed Jones in three of his five starts including the last two races. Charlie Kimball missed out on advancing to the second round of qualifying by 0.0303 seconds while Marco Andretti missed round two by 0.1297 seconds and both drivers make up row seven. Kimball has been running at the finish of the last three races, his longest streak of the season. Andretti is coming off his first top five finish in over two years after he finished fourth at Toronto. He has yet to finish in the top five at Mid-Ohio.
Ed Jones will start in 15th position for the second consecutive race. Since completing 886 of 890 laps in the first seven races, Jones has completed 638 of 758 laps run in the last five races with his only lead lap finish being at Road America. Three of those five results have been retirements for Jones. Spencer Pigot joins Jones on row eight. He started 16th at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis in May and finished ninth. He finished seventh at Mid-Ohio last year after starting 19th. Tony Kanaan and Max Chilton make it an all-Ganassi row nine. Kanaan was set to advance to the second round of qualifying but he had his fastest lap rescinded after he caused a local yellow for a spin in the keyhole in the final minutes of his qualifying group. Not only is this Kanaan's worst starting position of the season but also it was the sixth time in the last eight Mid-Ohio races he has not advanced to round two in qualifying. Chilton had advanced to the second round of qualifying at every permanent road course this season prior to Mid-Ohio.
J.R. Hildebrand and Carlos Muñoz round out the top twenty. This is Hildebrand's worst career starting position at Mid-Ohio. Hildebrand's best career finish in his prior four times starting 19th was seventh at Motegi in 2011. This is the third consecutive year Muñoz has started outside the top ten at Mid-Ohio. He went from 23rd to ninth in 2015 and from 15th to third last year. Mikhail Aleshin rounds out the grid in 21st position in his return race after being bench for Toronto. Aleshin did hit the barrier after a spin in the final practice session on Saturday morning. This is Aleshin's worst starting position of the season and this is only the third time he has started outside the top twenty in his career. He failed to finish on the lead lap and in the top fifteen in those prior two starts outside the top twenty.
CNBC's coverage of the Honda Indy 200 from Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course begins at 3:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 3:37 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 90 laps.
