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| Will Power closes the season with his fifth pole position of 2020 |
Will Power picked up his 62nd career pole position with a lap of 61.0369 seconds in the Fast Six session ahead of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. This is Power's ninth St. Petersburg pole position in 13 appearance, his most pole positions at one track He has never qualified worse than sixth in St. Petersburg with an average qualifying position being 1.769. The last two times he has started on pole position he has won. Power has never won in three consecutive starts from pole position. He has two St. Petersburg victories in 2010 and 2014. Power has finished on the podium in the season finale the last three years. In 2013, Power won the finale at Fontana to end the year with consecutive victories. In that season, Power's first victory came in the fifth-to-last race. This year, Power's first victory came in the fifth-to-last race and he could end the season with consecutive victories.
Alexander Rossi will make his first front row start of the season in the finale. Rossi was 0.1361 seconds off Power's pole position time. This is Rossi's best starting position at St. Petersburg. He looks to avoid his first winless season in IndyCar. Rossi has not had a winless year since 2014, when he competed in only 12 GP2 races after he left the Caterham F1 program and the 24 Hours of Daytona driving the DeltaWing. He has finished in the top five the last two years at St. Petersburg. The only time he has won from second on the grid was his most recent victory at Road America last year.
Colton Herta enters third in the championship and Herta will start in third position. He could become the first Andretti Autosport driver to lead an IndyCar season in road course points since Tony Kanaan in 2005, the first Indy Racing League season to feature road and street courses. Since Kanaan in 2005, all the drivers to top the road/street course points drove for Team Penske or Chip Ganassi Racing. Herta's road/street course points lead is only 12 points over Power after the Australian's pole position. Power has been the top road/street course driver five times.
James Hinchcliffe makes it three consecutive Andretti Autosport cars on the grid in fourth position, Hinchcliffe's best starting position of the season. He has had a podium finish in his last eight seasons. The only time he did not stand on a podium in his career was his rookie season when his best finish was fourth on three occasions. His only podium finish at St. Petersburg was his first career victory in 2013, which came from fourth on the grid with Will Power starting on pole position.
Jack Harvey ended up fifth in qualifying, the fifth time Harvey has started in the top five this season and the 11th time he has started in the top ten. He ends with the fifth-best average starting position in 2020 at 8.785. Harvey picked up his and Meyer Shank Racing's first IndyCar top ten finish last year at St. Petersburg with a tenth-place result. Harvey has not won a race since the 2015 Freedom 100. The only Freedom 100 winners to win an IndyCar race are Ed Carpenter, Josef Newgarden and Colton Herta.
Patricio O'Ward rounded out the top six. O'Ward will be making his 22nd start this season. He could become the seventh driver to score a first career victory in a 22nd career start. The last driver to do it was Buddy Rice in the 2004 Indianapolis 500. The other drivers to pick up a first career victory in a 22nd career start are George Connor, Chuck Stevenson, Jim Rathmann, Scott Sharp and Mark Blundell.
Sébastien Bourdais missed out on the Fast Six, but Bourdais will start seventh, A.J. Foyt Racing's best starting position of the season and the team's best since Tony Kanaan started sixth at Texas in 2018. Bourdais has won the season finale three times in his career, doing it in 2004, 2006 and 2007. However, those are the only times Bourdais has finished in the top five of season finales. He has finished in the top ten of the last four finales.
Josef Newgarden will start eighth and he will have some work to do to win the championship. With Scott Dixon starting 11th, Newgarden will cut the deficit to 27 points at the drop of the green flag, but to gain the 28 points necessary to win the championship he will need to win and lead the most laps. Newgarden could become the sixth driver to win three championships before the age of 30. The others were Louis Meyer, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Sam Hornish, Jr. and Sébastien Bourdais. Newgarden could become just the second Penske driver to come from behind on the last day of the season to win a championship. The other was Hornish in 2006, when he overcame a one-point deficit to take the title from teammate Hélio Castroneves.
Rinus VeeKay and Oliver Askew make it an all-rookie row five. VeeKay has won at St. Petersburg in Indy Pro 2000 and Indy Lights. Patricio O'Ward is the only other driver to have done that. Ed Carpenter Racing's best St. Petersburg finish was ninth in 2015 with Luca Filippi when the team was CFH Racing. Askew could become the first Florida-born driver to win an IndyCar race, and he could do it in his home state. The best finish for a Florida-born driver was George DeWitt coming in second at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the G & J Trophy Race on August 20, 1909. DeWitt was second to Lewis Strang. Askew's third-place finish at Iowa made him the third Florida-born driver to stand on a podium. The other was LeeRoy Yarbrough, who finished third at Trenton on April 25, 1971.
Scott Dixon starts 11th, the third consecutive race he has started outside the top ten. This is the first time Dixon has failed to start in the top ten of three consecutive races since 2013, when he did not start in the top ten for four consecutive races from Texas to Pocono. Dixon could become the 12th champion since 1946 to win a championship after the age of 40. Other champions over the age of 40 are Tony Bettenhausen, Rodger Ward, Joe Leonard, Roger McCluskey, A.J. Foyt, Gordon Johncock, Johnny Rutherford, Al Unser, Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi and Nigel Mansell.
Simon Pagenaud had his fastest two laps defeated for causing a red flag in round two and he will start 12th. This is the tenth time Pagenaud has started outside the top ten this season. He has finished in the top five of the last four season finales, however, he enters this race without a top five result in his last seven races. His longest streak without a top five finish was when he opened the 2018 season with eight races without a top five finishes.
Takuma Sato starts 13th. Sato has never finished in the top five in a season finale, and he has finished outside the top ten in last four finales and in seven of ten finales in his career. Sato has finished outside the top ten in the last four races. This is the eighth time in his IndyCar career he has a streak of at least four consecutive finishes outside the top ten.
Conor Daly will roll off from the 14th position. Daly has made only two starts at St. Petersburg, a 13th in 2016 and a 15th in 2017. He won at St. Petersburg in 2010 in Star Mazda and he was runner-up in the 2011 Indy Lights race to Josef Newgarden. No driver has won in Star Mazda/Pro Mazda/Indy Pro 2000 and IndyCar at St. Petersburg.
Marcus Ericsson ended up 15th, his fourth consecutive start outside the top ten and the tenth time he has started outside the top ten this season. Ericsson has not won a race since July 6, 2013 in the GP2 Series feature race at the Nürburgring. James Calado and former IndyCar driver Stefano Coletti rounded out the podium that day. Alexander Rossi was 11th.
Álex Palou will start 16th. Palou has finished ahead of his Dale Coyne Racing teammate Ferrucci in six of 13 races. Neither DCR driver had a streak of best finisher in the team longer than two races. He has qualified ahead of Ferrucci in nine of 14 races. In the previous eight races where Palou has been top DCR qualifier, five times Ferrucci has come out as the top DCR finisher. Palou has finished worse than his starting position in seven races.
Graham Rahal starts the season finale from 17th on the grid. After finishing first and seventh in his first two St. Petersburg starts, Graham Rahal has one top ten finish in his last nine starts at the track, a second in 2018. He could end his season with five consecutive top ten finishes, which would be his longest streak to end a season. Last year, Rahal had an eight-race top ten streak, which matched his career-high.
Santino Ferrucci has positioned car #18 in 18th on the grid. Last year, Ferrucci did not score a top ten finish between race ten and race 13 of the season. He enters this race after having not scored a top ten finish between race ten and race 13. In race 14 last year, he ended up picking up a fourth-place finish at Pocono. If he does not finish in the top ten today it will be his longest streak without a top ten in his IndyCar career.
Ryan Hunter-Reay qualified 19th, his worst starting position of the season and his worst starting position ever at St. Petersburg. Hunter-Reay has four podium finishes at St. Petersburg, tied with Mid-Ohio for track with his most podium finishes without a victory. He has six top five finishes in 13 St. Petersburg starts. He has only led eight laps at this track. Hunter-Reay has finished on the podium seven times when starting outside the top ten in his career. He has won from 19th once, the 2014 Indianapolis 500.
Charlie Kimball rounds out the top twenty. Kimball's best St. Petersburg finish was ninth in 2012. A.J. Foyt Racing has not had a top ten finish in the last three St. Petersburg races. The team has never had a top five finish in this race. A.J. Foyt Racing has a combined three top ten finishes. It would be the team's fewest since 2012.
After brushing the wall in qualifying, Scott McLaughlin will make his IndyCar debut from 21st position on the grid. McLaughlin will be full-time next year in a fourth Team Penske entry. This will be McLaughlin's first single-seater race since the 2010 Victorian State Formula Ford 1600 championship. The only driver to win on a Team Penske debut was Sam Hornish, Jr. at Homestead in 2004. Team Penske has won nine St. Petersburg races with five different drivers.
Felix Rosenqvist lost his fastest two lap times in round one for qualifying interference and will start 22nd, his worst starting position since 29th in last year's Indianapolis 500. This is Rosenqvist's first time starting outside the top twenty on a road/street course. Last year, Rosenqvist led 31 laps from third on the grid on his way to a fourth-place finish on debut at St. Petersburg. He picked up his first career Indy Lights victory at the track in 2016. Chip Ganassi Racing's only St. Petersburg victory was with Dario Franchitti in 2011.
Marco Andretti ended up 23rd after losing his top two laps for qualifying interference in round one on Newgarden. Andretti has finished outside the top twenty in seven of 13 races this season. Entering this season, he had finished outside the top twenty in 19 races. This could be the second time in his career he will not score a top five finish in a season. The other time was in 2016.
Max Chilton brought out a red flag in his round one group and will start 24th. Chilton started 24th last year at St. Petersburg. He has never finished in the top fifteen at St. Petersburg with his average finish being 17th. His only top ten finish on a street course was seventh at Toronto in 2017. Chilton is only eight points ahead of Hinchcliffe for 22nd in the championship. Chilton was 22nd in the championship last year.
NBC's coverage of the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg will begin at 2:30 p.m. ET with green flag schedule for 2:32 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 100 laps.
