Carpenter Fastest On Day One of Indianapolis 500 Qualifying

Ed Carpenter Fastest Again At Indianapolis

Last year's Indianapolis 500 pole-sitter Ed Carpenter ended day one of 2014 time trials on top with a four-lap average of 230.661 MPH. He beat last year's Indianapolis 500 runner-up and Rookie of the Year Carlos Muñoz by 0.201 MPH for the 33 points for fastest qualifier. Hélio Castroneves rounded out the top three with a four-lap average of 230.432 MPH.

James Hinchcliffe was fourth just three days after being cleared to race after suffering a concussion with an average of 230.407 MPH. Will Power rounded out the top five with Marco Andretti in sixth. Simon Pagenaud was seventh quickest one week after winning the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Josef Newgarden made a last second run to improve to eighth with JR Hildebrand bookending the Fast Nine for Ed Carpenter Racing with a four lap average of 230.027 MPH.

Kurt Busch left for Charlotte solidly in the Fast Nine but dropped to tenth. Ryan Hunter-Reay was the penultimate driver on track after withdrawing his tenth fastest time to try and bump out Hildebrand. Hunter-Reay fell to eleventh. Jack Hawksworth was the top rookie in twelfth at 229.816 MPH. Juan Pablo Montoya was thirteenth in his first appearance at Indianapolis in the Month of May since winning in 2000. Justin Wilson and Scott Dixon rounded out the top fifteen.

Mikhail Aleshin was sixteenth with a 229.091 MPH in his second attempt of the day. Ryan Briscoe was struggling to find speed all day and settled for seventeenth quickest at 228.825 MPH. Takuma Sato was eighteen with Briscoe's Ganassi teammate Charlie Kimball in nineteenth and Graham Rahal twentieth.

Sage Karam was twenty-first at 229.650 MPH. Townsend Bell was twenty-second with Tony Kanaan feeling the worse of Ganassi's qualifying troubles in twenty-third at 228.435 MPH. Kanaan's former team and defending Indianapolis 500 winners, KV Racing had Sébastien Bourdais ended up in twenty-fourth. Pippa Mann rounded out the top twenty-fifth.

Sebastián Saavedar was twenty-sixth with Jacques Villeneuve twenty-seventh in his first Indianapolis 500 appearance since his 1995 victory. James Davison was the final qualifier and ended up twenty-eight at 228.150 MPH. Oriol Servià and Carlos Huertas rounded out the top thirty.

Alex Tagliani, Martin Plowman and Buddy Lazier rounded out the thirty-three cars who participated in qualifying today. Should a late entry be announced, these drivers face the possibility of being bumped. Lazier was the slowest qualifier at 226. 543 MPH.

Day two of Indianapolis 500 qualifying begins at 10:15 a.m. ET with group one. Group two will take place at 12:45 p.m. ET should a 34th car be entered. The Fast Nine session will take place at 2:00 p.m. ET with ABC's coverage beginning at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Indianapolis 500 Time Trials Day 1 Preview

With the qualification changes, I am not sure what to call today. It isn't pole day and it isn't necessarily bump day, one because there are only 33 cars entered and bumping could happen tomorrow. Today is points day. Thirty-three points are on the line for fastest qualifier with each slower qualifier receiving one less point all the way down to 33rd.

Chevrolet has dominated Indianapolis 500 qualifying the last two years having won pole each year while taking seventeen of eighteen Fast Nine spots, including a clean sweep of the Fast Nine last year. Honda has responded with Andretti Autosport and the Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports' Simon Pagenaud being up at the top of the time sheets. The last Honda to make the Fast Nine was Josef Newgarden in 2012.

Team Penske has constantly put their three cars at the top of the time sheet all week while Ed Carpenter and his teammate JR Hildebrand have also been at the top. Scott Dixon has been the lone Ganassi driver constantly toward the top of the time sheets. Ganassi has failed to put a car in the Fast Nine the last two seasons with the fuel mishaps that cost Dixon and then-teammate Dario Franchitti both shots at pole in 2011 still fresh on the mind.

I have been vocal about the qualifying changes. Another positive from this is we potentially are looking at two days of cars going at the limit. A lot of talk this year has been amount hitting a 230 MPH four-lap average. If it doesn't happen to today, there is always tomorrow which is something we haven't had the chance of seeing for sometime now. Granted tomorrow, when the Fast Nine goes at 2:00 p.m. isn't the prime time to see the fastest time of the month but the weather forecast looks favorable for both today and tomorrow.

The rules about making another qualifying attempt and withdrawing times is a little confusing. For nearly a century the rule has been if you make another qualifying attempt, the previous time must be withdrawn. This year a team does not have to withdraw a time should they like to make another qualifying attempt. However, if a team chooses to withdraw their time then they go to the front of the qualifying line. It will be interesting to see what times choose to do and it could possibly lead to a cat-and-mouse game of someone withdrawing a time, going to the head of the line and possibly forcing another handful of cars to withdrawn their times to jump the line and get another crack at it.

Yesterday I said I had no idea what was going to happen and I am still not sure. I will make some vague predictions. I think Penske gets two cars in the Fast Nine, Andretti puts two, maybe three in the Fast Nine. Carpenter, Pagenaud and Dixon make it.

There is always one surprise in the Fast Nine and sometimes more than one. In the inaugural Fast Nine in 2010, Alex Tagliani driving for a new team, Hideki Mutoh driving for a new team and Graham Rahal and Ed Carpenter in one-offs made the Fast Nine. The following year saw one-offs Townsend Bell, Dan Wheldon and Buddy Rice make the Fast Nine with Tagliani on pole. Josef Newgarden was the surprise in 2012 making the Fast Nine as a rookie and being the top Honda qualifier over Ganassi Racing and last year was Ed Carpenter's thrashing of the Goliaths 5-car Andretti Autosport and 3-car Team Penske.

If were looking for a surprise, keep an eye on JR Hildebrand, Townsend Bell, Sébastien Bourdais, Sage Karam, Kurt Busch and Mikhail Aleshin.

Qualifying begins at 11:00 a.m. ET and will be streamed on ESPN3 and the WatchESPN app. ABC's coverage begins at 4:00 p.m. ET.

A Week of Practice And No Idea Of What Will Happen Next

I have no idea what tomorrow holds for Indianapolis 500 qualifying. 

I have no idea if Chevrolet is going to wipe the floor with Honda like they have the past two years. I have no idea if the likes of JR Hildebrand, Townsend Bell and Kurt Busch will play spoiler and crack the top nine while championship contenders languish in the middle of the field. I have no idea if the top four-lap average is going to be 230 MPH or 225 MPH.

This Month of May has felt so different from others in recent memory with a few caveats of what May has been in the last twenty years. 

Despite the uncertainty, the qualifying changes, the lack of bumping (at least we think so), the speeds,   it still feels special. It feels like the Month of May. Granted the amount of Mays I have experienced are far fewer than many. I never saw fifty to sixty cars, front and rear engined, enter with short trackers going against the best from Europe and rest of the world. I never saw a track record though a few occurred in my lifetime and other than a few dramatic years from 2008-2011, bumping consists of Tony Stewart's 2004 attempt being squashed by Joe Gibbs, GM and MBNA and Arie Luyendyk Jr. being bumped by Felipe Giaffone after he was shopping at the mall with his wife earlier in the day. 

This month has been full of plenty of daily activity to keep fans interested and plenty of rain to piss said fans off. The Grand Prix, despite the opinions of many including myself proved to be a much more successful way to kick things off. It brought more people through the turnstiles and more racing on the track. Both pluses. 

When it comes to the oval we have seen Chevrolets and Hondas on top. The names Castroneves, Andretti, Carpenter, Dixon and Pagenaud have all been at top with Hildebrand, Busch, Karam, Newgarden and Bell lurking. Hawksworth is the lone driver to find the wall but with two days of qualifying to go, you just have to think he won't be the only one. Katherine Legge is still looking for a ride. Bryan Clauson has one... for 2015. It'd be nice if they both had rides for this weekend but baby steps toward bumping in 2015 wouldn't be a bad idea. 

Meanwhile, Kurt Busch's stand-by driver for the Month of May was announced and it is Parker Kligerman. Kligerman started 2014 driving for Swan Racing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series before he lost his ride. Kligerman is a talented driver. He won in ARCA, won in the Truck Series and had a great season in Nationwide driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports last year, finishing ninth in the championship and his best finish being third at Road America. Don't get me wrong, I like Kligerman. He is more than welcome to come to IndyCar if he can't find a ride in NASCAR but I just don't think he should be Busch's stand-by. You have experienced drivers such as Bruno Junqueira (who Michael Andretti still owes), Katherine Legge, Bryan Clauson, E.J. Viso, Wade Cunningham and so on, on the sidelines who I think deserve a call. 

I have heard time and time again what the Month of May was and don't get me wrong, I do daydream of going back in time, to the days when the stands were full each weekend in May and innovation amazed and inspired. There is something about the Month of May. It's not the same but it is evolving. Indianapolis for a long time was the track for one race and one race only. Now it has become a track for all. From the up and coming drivers in the open-wheel ladder system to the 33 fastest for the 500 and the top riders and stock car drivers later in the summer. The Speedway hasn't suffered through the change. Think about Spa, Silverstone and Monza. All historic, all prestigious, all host multiple events, from F1 to sports cars to junior Formulas. If anything, it is for the better Indianapolis has become inclusive, hosting the best in oval and road course racing.

I'm not sure what May will look like next year or ten years from now or twenty-five years from now the same way I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow in qualifying or the day after that in qualifying. I know what I'd like the Month of May to be but at a minimalist point of view, as long as the Indianapolis 500 exists, everything will be ok. 

Legge Needs a Helping Hand, All-Star Race and More

Can a thirty-fourth entry be found for the Indianapolis 500?

Thirty-three isn't an issue. Buddy Lazier completed his refresher and James Davison passed rookie orientation, but can someone step up and field a ride for Katherine Legge? The British driver has made back-to-back Indianapolis 500 starts and is looking for her third consecutive appearance.

The one hang-up... equipment. Earlier this week, Racer.com's Marshall Pruett reported AJ Foyt was interest in entering a third car for Legge, despite the belief Honda was not going to run a nineteenth car for the Indianapolis 500. While Honda appears to be at their limit, Chevrolet has only fifteen cars lined-up for the Indianapolis 500 but lack teams possible of fielding Legge. Ed Carpenter is running an additional entry, KV is running an additional two and Ganassi is not only running an additional full-time car but are in partnership with Dreyer & Reinbold's entry.

And then there is Penske... When was the last time Penske threw caution to the wind and made an entry out of nothing during Indianapolis 500 qualifying? I only suggest this because of an example Racer.com's Robin Miller used when explaining Indianapolis 500 changes with IndyCar's Derrick Walker.

Miller used Penske and Foyt as examples of teams telling Walker that they would run an extra car in Sunday qualifying. Of course he could just be using them as examples but think about it, the only Chevrolet team possibly capable of field another car is Penske. If the series and Verizon are interested in getting Legge the opportunity to make field, Penske makes the most sense. They are sponsored by Verizon, are a Chevrolet team and have all the resources.

Whether it happens or not remains to be seen but if we are to see bumping for the 98th Indianapolis 500, Katherine Legge may be the only hope.

NASCAR All-Star Race
NASCAR's All-Star Race this weekend. This year's event will feature twenty-two driver, nineteen already qualified based on race wins over the last fifteen months with two transfers from the Showdown and the fan-vote winner.

There seems to be plenty of opinions over what should be done to improve the exhibition event. I mind as well bite and throw in my two-cents.

It's a exhibition but, like many things in motorsports, it is getting to complicated and a little redundant. The format has changed so many times that you would think, with this being the thirtieth running of the All-Star Race, they would have already found a format that has worked for years that the fans can count on. Instead it has been home to nearly annual changes trying to make meaningless laps meaningful to fill time before we get to the final ten laps.

The race has become a set of short segments to easily fit in-between TV commercial breaks. They try, one, two and three segments and four quarters to make it feel like football (motorsports will never be football. Whether it be American or association. How is Superleague Formula doing by the way? Oh that's right) and four quarters with overtime. They've tried eliminations after segments, inverting the field, mandatory pit stops, mandatory stop-and-go's, having segment winners start at the front for the final segment and each has opened their own door of problems.

Want a great race? First off, give the fans a proper race. Don't give them meaningless pit stop after meaningless pit stop and phantom caution after phantom caution to bunch up the field. Make it natural. If a pit stop is going to happen, it is because a team needs to make a tire change or needs fuel. Not because the rule book says so (look at how the DTM did with their now defunct mandatory two pit stop rule).

If I had my way, I would take parts of each format and settle on one format from now on.

First segment: 50 laps. Let pit stops happen naturally. If I were to make one rule though, no pit stops in-between segments. Then I would eliminate six drivers. So this year, drivers in positions 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 are eliminated.

Second segment: 30 laps. Let pit stops happen naturally. Six more drivers eliminated. So, positions 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 are eliminated.

Final segment: 10 laps, 10 drivers.

Simple, to the point, no hoops to jump through, no charades, just a race.

As for the ideas of moving the All-Star Race around. Keep it in Charlotte. The week the All-Star Race falls gives the teams a much needed week home. Why make the teams travel somewhere for a mid-season exhibition? If you want the All-Star Race at a short track then maybe move it to Rockingham or North Wilkesboro or somewhere that is easy travel for these teams.

Then there is the fan vote. Instead of making it a "vote for me so charity X gets Y amount of dollars," make it something a driver earns. Allow the top two from the Showdown to transfer but make the fan-vote driver come from positions 3rd through 7th. No more riding around at the back, keeping a car in one piece so they are prepared for the All-Star Race. Make the drivers earn it and not just settle with a fifteenth place finish in a twenty-three car field.

Practices
Marc Márquez topped both MotoGP practices from Le Mans. His fastest time was a 1:33.452. Andrea Iannone was second with Álvaro Bautista, Bradley Smith and Dani Pedrosa rounding out the top five. Stefan Bradl was sixth with Jorge Lorenzo in seventh. Valentino Rossi was tenth. Americans Nicky Hayden and Carl Edwards were fourteenth and fifteenth respectively.

Fabian Coulthard was fastest in V8 Supercars practice from Perth with a 55.7493 second lap. Chaz Mostert was second with defending champion Jamie Whincup third. David Reynolds and Robert Dahlgren rounded out the top five with V8SC points leader Mark Winterbottom in sixth.

Other series taking place this weekend: DTM is at Oschersleben, ELMS at Imola, Blancpain Sprint at Brands Hatch and Super Formula at Fuji.

Musings From the Weekend: Crowds, Bluffs, A Gift From God, Canopies

The month of May is in full swing. IndyCar is at Indianapolis, Formula One is back in Europe, NASCAR has their All-Star Race next week. Plus the weather is gorgeous, can't complain this time of year.

Grand Prix of Indianapolis Recap
The inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis was a success. The month of May opened up with more than a few thousand people wandering the Speedway waiting for cars to get on track to shakedown. It wasn't a bad change at all.

A few things:
1. Can we stop trying to estimating crowds? 30,000 to one looks like 45,000 to another. Of course the easiest way to alleviate this problem would be for the track to release the attendance figures. I never understood why tracks are so gun shy to give those figures out when every other sports arena give them away like clockwork. I know for a baseball game, attendance is normally announced around the seventh-inning stretch. Soccer matches release it in the final ten minutes or so of a match. Why couldn't a race track release attendance with 10 to go for a road/street course race and 20 to go for an oval race? That type of transparency would a breath of fresh air in motorsports.

2. Whether the changes to the IMS road course were good or bad lie within the eye of the behold. Juan Pablo Montoya liked the changes, Rubens Barrichello did not.

To be fair to Barrichello, he thought running through oval turn one led to a better passing opportunity and I even said I'd like to see IndyCar run oval turn one.

As for the tire concerns dating back to the 2005 United States Grand Prix, I think we need to go back and absolve Michelin of some of the blame. The first four times Michelin ran at Indianapolis, no problem. The fifth time they go, Toyota had a couple problems, Ralf Schumacher had another big accident and red flags were raised. To be honest, I have always thought it wasn't necessarily a Michelin issue as much as it was Toyota maybe running too much camber or got the setup wrong and it caused the tires to wear quicker.

Remember that season in-race pit stops for tires were banned and tires could be changed only if there was a puncture, weather change or it was proven the tires were dangerously worn. Hindsight being 20/20, maybe the teams should have been allowed to make one tire change during the race and the whole protest and sight of six cars competing would never be edged into our memories.

Time For Chevrolet to Put Their Money Where Their Mouth Is
AJ Foyt is a gift from God. Racer.com's Marshall Pruett reported yesterday Katherine Legge is looking for a ride for the 2014 Indianapolis 500 and AJ Foyt maybe the one to step up to the plate and hire her for the 34th entry to the 2014 Indianapolis 500.

This would be Honda's 19th entry to the Indianapolis 500 while Chevrolet is at 15 and appears unlikely to be adding anymore. During the offseason Chevrolet said they feared being underrepresented on the grid and are ready to supply additional entries. Guess what Chevrolet? You are.

In one calendar year, you lost four full-time entries (2 Dragons, Panther and Dreyer & Reinbold). When you have teams struggling to survive, get behind them instead of letting them go down with the ship. I'm not saying throw them wads of cash but help them talk to sponsors to keep going.

The one thing Chevrolet needs are single car teams. Honda has every single car team but Ed Carpenter Racing. Single car teams round out the grid and provide jobs for many. Imagine if the three teams listed above each had one car full-time in addition to the cars already on the Indianapolis 500 entry list? There would be plenty of bumping, plenty of drivers getting opportunities and crew members working.

As with everything else, easier said than done but I got to call Chevrolet's bluff. If you fear being underrepresented than you got to do more than just sitting on the sidelines waiting for people just to come to the door and take an engine.

Canopies
James Hinchcliffe suffered a concussion during the Grand Prix of Indianapolis after being hit in the head with a piece of debris while Martin Plowman was also hit in the head with a piece of debris. Canopies have been brought up in all forms of open-wheel racing for a while now but no one has acted upon them. I can live with them. With the age of aero kits upon us, if someone's aero kit includes a canopy over the driver, so be it.

Now I'm not sure if canopies should become a mandatory component with every aero kit. While it would prevent any further incidents such as Hinchcliffe's this past weekend or Felipe Massa at Hungary 2009 or Henry Surtees the week prior to Massa's accident, these accidents aren't frequent, surprisingly in a way. If in three years there are a dozen canopy cars in the Indianapolis 500 and another 21 open-cockpit, I wouldn't oblige.

Some believe canopies would go against what any IndyCar is suppose to be. I don't believe there is anyone image of what an IndyCar is. It is ever-changing. If we go back over a century, what an IndyCar is was no seltbelts, no mirrors, riding-mechanic, a good four feet off the ground. Today's IndyCar looks nothing like that and for good reason, evolution. Look at sports cars. There is no single image of what an LMP1 car is suppose to be. When Audi entered, it was open-cockpit, petrol-engines. Then it became diesel-engines, then closed-cockpit, diesel-engines now closed-cockpit, diesel-hybrid engines and no one has scoffed Audi for building cars that aren't true LMP1 cars. They have evolved. The same way IndyCar has evolved from the Marmon Wasp to the Maserati 8CTF to the Kurtis Krafts to the Cooper-Climax to the Lotus 38 to the Lotus 56 to the McLaren M16C to the Chaparral 2K to the Penske PC-23 to the current DW12.

Winners From The Weekend

Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg made it another Mercedes 1-2 at the Spanish Grand Prix. Daniel Ricciardo scored his first career podium. Sebastian Vettel went from 15th to 4th and scored fastest lap.

Jeff Gordon is in the Chase with his win at Kansas. Kyle Busch won the Truck race.

Road to Indy winners: Matthew Brabham and Luiz Razia in Indy Lights, Scott Hargrove swept Pro Mazda, Will Owen and Adrian Starrantino in U.S. F2000.

Jari-Matti Latvala won Rally Argentina. His Volkswagen teammate and World Rally Championship points leader Sébastien Ogier finished second with Kris Meeke in third.

Sébastien Loeb won the only WTCC race in Slovakia. Race two was cancel due to heavy rain.

Jonathan Rea swept the World Superbike weekend at Imola and took the points lead by four over defending champion Tom Sykes.

Coming up this weekend:
Indianapolis 500 qualifying.
MotoGP runs the French Grand Prix at Le Mans.
NASCAR All-Star Race at Charlotte.
DTM at Oschersleben.
V8 Supercars at Perth.
Blancpain Sprint Series at Brands Hatch.
European Le Mans Series at Imola (Imola is busy this month).
Super Formula plays two at Fuji.

First Impressions: 2014 Grand Prix of Indianapolis

1. Dear God, I hate fuel mileage races.

2. Simon Pagenaud was quick all weekend and it's no surprise he got the victory. Good for him, good for France, good for Sam Schmidt, Ric Peterson, Davey Hamilton and all involved.

3. Ryan Hunter-Reay with another solid finish in second. Making up for Long Beach with a win and second.

4. Hélio Castroneves needed another lap on his birthday for him to become the tenth birthday winner. Birthday wishes only go so far and they could only get Castroneves third.

4. Sébastien Bourdais in fourth makes up for KV's disastrous start (more on that later).

5. Charlie Kimball goes from 23rd to fifth. Not bad. His season started less than stellar.

6. Ryan Briscoe overcomes a pit penalty for a quiet sixth place finish.

7. Jack Hawksworth started like a bat out of hell but pit strategy didn't go his way. First career top ten at Indianapolis isn't that bad and watch out for him on road and street courses. I still think he will struggle on ovals.

8. Will Power got a penalty. When does that ever happen? Hit an air gun. Still recovered for eighth.

9. Takuma Sato and Tony Kanaan quietly rounded out the top ten. Really not much else to say about their days. Were hardly mentioned.

10. Justin Wilson had an unscheduled pit stop drop him to eleventh. A good day for him but he will look back thinking he could have finished better.

11. Pagenaud and Hunter-Reay were able to stretch their pit strategy, Oriol Servià was not able to and he had to pit from the lead late. It would have been a great shot in the arm for him and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Twelfth from twenty-second would be great most days but this wasn't most days.

12. The Grand Prix of Indianapolis has it's Roberto Guerrero moment and it involved another Colombian. I hated to see Sebastián Saavedra's day end before it began (same for Carlos Muñoz and Mikhail Aleshin) but this is two stalls/slow get aways in two standing starts in 2014. I think KV Racing hiring AJ Unser, Jr. as a driver's coach will benefit him the most.

13. I am over the acceleration zone bullshit. Let the leader go once they exit the final corner. Don't try to have the field under a blanket and then throw the green. Let them go. I don't care if the leader has a reasonable lead entering turn one, they are the leader. The restarts need to be cleaner, period. There is no reason for multiple accidents before cars have passed start/finish on a restart each season.

14. ABC, please find new color commentators. Why the hell is Eddie Cheever asking to go on board a lapped car? Please, ABC? You made a great decision putting Bestwick behind the lead microphone but his two wingers are holding him back. Clone Townsend Bell and Jon Beekhuis if you have to. Cheever and Goodyear are beyond their prime as commentators, find some new blood. I think Alex Lloyd would do an amazing job but I would get frustrated that he, at 29 years of age, is in the booth and not behind the wheel of a race car but that's another story.

15. I need a breather. Indianapolis 500 practice begins tomorrow but I need at least two days to recover. I wasn't a supporter of the road course race at the beginning, still a little against it but I can live with it. It was a good race...

16. Let's just clean up the bullshit because it feels like it happens every race. You can't have every race with a botched restart or botched initial start or missed pit penalties. IndyCar needs to clean up the bullshit.

Morning Warm-Up: 2014 Grand Prix of Indianapolis

Can Sebastián Saavedra Turn His First Career Pole into His First Career Win?

Can the narrative from qualifying continue? Sebastián Saavedra took a surprise pole position for the inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis in a wet session. The Colombian has never started better than sixth in his career and has never started better than ninth on a road/street circuit. His best career finish is eighth at Baltimore last year. Joining Saavedra on row one is rookie Jack Hawksworth, his first career front row start. The Brit has started three of his four career races in the top ten but is still looking for his first career top ten finish.

Ryan Hunter-Reay was all set to start on pole position before causing the red flag that ended the qualifying session and forced the 2012 IndyCar champion to lose his two fastest laps. His third fastest lap however was good enough for third on the starting grid. Simon Pagenaud will start fourth. He ran the fastest lap in the dry, a 69.6716 second lap.

Will Power and Scott Dixon start on row three. Power leads the points while the defending IndyCar champion Dixon is looking for his first win of 2014. Sébastien Bourdais starts seventh. The Frenchman won the inaugural sports car Brickyard Grand Prix at Indianapolis two years ago. Juan Pablo Montoya will start eighth. Tony Kanaan starts ninth and his fellow Brazilian Hélio Castroneves rounds out the top ten. Castroneves looks to become the tenth different driver to win an IndyCar race on their birthday. He turns 39 years old today. James Hinchcliffe starts eleventh with Graham Rahal recording his best start of 2014 in twelfth.

Marco Andretti barely missed out on round two and will have to start thirteenth. He is joined by Ryan Briscoe on row seven.  Honda takes the next eight spots on the grid. Josef Newgarden finds himself starting fifteenth with Takuma Sato in sixteenth. Dale Coyne Racing swept row nine with Carlos Huertas starting ahead of Justin Wilson in seventeenth. Rookies Carlos Muñoz and Martin Plowman round out the top twenty.

Franck Montagny makes his IndyCar return in twenty-first. His last race was Sonoma 2009 where he finished twentieth. Oriol Servià starts twenty-second. Charlie Kimball starts twenty-third. The Californian has the worst average start among the full-time IndyCar drivers at 19.75 through four races. Mike Conway starts twenty-fourth. He has struggled ever since his Long Beach victory with a twenty-first starting position at Barber and a fourteenth place finish. Mikhail Aleshin rounds out the field in twenty-fifth. The Russian was set to advance to round two before being penalized for interference.

Coverage for the 2014 Grand Prix of Indianapolis begins at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC. Green flag will be at 3:50 p.m. ET. The Grand Prix of Indianapolis will feature a standing start.