Morning Warm-Up: Gateway 2017

New track, another new track record for Will Power

Will Power picked up his 50th career IndyCar pole position and the Australian did it in style by setting the Gateway track record. He ran a two-lap average of 189.642 MPH, over a mile and a half per hour faster than the previous track record held by Raul Boesel. Power also set the single-lap track record with a time of 23.7206 seconds on lap one. This is Power's sixth pole position of the season and he is tied with his teammate Hélio Castroneves for third-most pole positions all-time in IndyCar history. This is Power's ninth pole position on an oval. He has won twice from pole position on an oval and has four top five finishes from his nine prior oval pole positions. Josef Newgarden makes it an all-Penske row one. Newgarden started second to Power at Mid-Ohio last month. This will be the 12th front row start of Newgarden's career. He has finished in the top five in five of his previous 11 front row starts but has finished outside the top ten four times after starting on row one.

Hélio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud make it a clean sweep of the top four for Team Penske. It is the second time this season Team Penske has swept the top four. The other time Team Penske did it was at Road America. Castroneves has started in the top ten in every one of his six Gateway appearances. He is looking for his sixth top ten finish in six Gateway starts. Pagenaud has been the bottom Penske qualifier seven times this season but he has only been the bottom Penske finish once. That was when he finished seventh at Iowa. Ed Carpenter rounded out the top five. It is Carpenter's third top five starting position of the season, a career-high for top five starts in a season for Carpenter. He has finished seventh, 11th, 11th, 12th and 12th in his first five starts this season. He has not had a top five finish in his last 16 starts and during that period he has led seven laps. Takuma Sato was the top Honda qualifier in sixth. Sato has been the top Andretti Autosport qualifier in seven races this season including three oval races.

Scott Dixon will start in seventh position. The New Zealander's only top five finish on an oval this season was fifth at Phoenix. Dixon has started in the top ten in 14 of 15 races this season. Dixon has been running at the finish of his last 14 races where he has started seventh. His last retirement after starting seventh was at Michigan in 2007. Carlos Muñoz joins Dixon on row four. This is Muñoz's first top ten starting position of the season and his first top ten starting position since he won pole position for Texas last year. This will be the first time Muñoz has started eighth in his IndyCar career. Alexander Rossi starts ninth for the second time in three races and third time this season. Rossi's worst finish when starting ninth was 11th at Texas last year. Rossi has also finished on the podium in two of the last three races. James Hinchcliffe rounds out the top ten. It is Hinchcliffe's 11th top ten starting position of the season. Hinchcliffe has had an accident in three of the five previous oval races this season.

Conor Daly qualified 11th, his career-best start on an oval. Daly picked up his first career lead lap finish on an oval last weekend at Pocono. He has finished equal or better than his starting position in the last six races. The furthest back a Gateway winner has started is 11th. Ed Jones joins Daly on row six. This is the ninth time this season Jones has been the top Dale Coyne Racing qualifier. Jones has been running at the finish of four of five oval races this season with the lone exception being Texas. Jones is still looking for his first career lap led. Graham Rahal starts outside the top ten for the first time since Texas in June as the Ohioan starts in 13th position. Rahal starts 13th ten years to the day of the first time he started 13th in his career. He started 13th at Zolder in 2007 and finished third in that race. He has twice won from 13th in his career but he has also finished outside the top twenty on three occasions when starting 13th. Ryan Hunter-Reay will start 14th, his fifth start outside the top ten on an oval this season.

J.R. Hildebrand starts 15th. This is the tenth time this season Hildebrand has started on row eight or worse. In his six previous starts from 15th on the grid, Hildebrand has three top ten finishes, two 11th place finishes and a 13th place finish. Max Chilton leads a trio of Ganassi cars on the grid, as the British driver starts 16th with Tony Kanaan and Charlie Kimball occupying row nine of the grid. This is Chilton's worst career starting position on a short oval. His best finish when starting outside the top fifteen came at Pocono last year when he finished 13th. Kanaan matches his worst starting position of the season. He started 17th at Mid-Ohio and he would go on to finish 16th in that race. Kanaan's only top ten finish this season after starting outside the top ten was tenth in the second Belle Isle race after he started 15th. Kimball has finished on the lead lap in the last three races after having only three lead lap finishes from the first 11 races of the season.

Sébastien Bourdais makes his IndyCar return in 19th position on the grid. This is Bourdais' worst start on an oval since he started 19th in last year's Indianapolis 500. He would go on to finish ninth in that race. This is the third time Bourdais has started 19th in his IndyCar career and all three starts have come on ovals. Marco Andretti rounds out the top twenty. This is Andretti's fifth consecutive start outside the top ten. He started 20th at Iowa last month and finished 17th, two laps down but led seven laps. He led nine laps at Pocono last week. Sebastián Saavedra rounds out the grid in 21st position. Saavedra's best finish from 21st on the grid was 15th at Toronto in the second race of the 2013 doubleheader.

NBCSN's coverage Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Valvoline begins at 9:00 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 9:40 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 248 laps.