Friday, June 7, 2013

Will Power Powers To Texas Pole

Will Power won his second pole position of the season and third career pole on an oval with a two lap average of 219.182 MPH almost two miles an hour over second place Marco Andretti's 217.553 MPH average. Ryan Hunter-Reay was third, only twenty-nine hundredths of a MPH off his teammate with Dario Franchitti starting in fourth position. EJ Viso starts fifth with Helio Castroneves in sixth.

The Hondas of Josef Newgarden and Charlie Kimball occupy row four ahead of Indianapolis 500 pole-sitter Ed Carpenter in ninth. James Jakes continues his streak in the right direction and will start tenth. Jakes picked up his first career IndyCar top ten last year at Texas. Scott Dixon starts eleventh. Simona de Silvestro qualified twelfth but will serve a ten grid spot penalty for an unapproved engine change after Belle Isle. James Hinchcliffe will start twelfth. Simona Pagenaud will also going to the rear of the field after an engine change.

Tony Kanaan starts thirteenth ahead of Alex Tagliani. Tagliani had won the last two pole positions at Texas. Sébastien Bourdais will start fifteenth. This is the Frenchman's first start at Texas Motor Speedway. Oriol Serviá will roll off from sixteenth position in his first start for Panther Racing. Graham Rahal starts seventeenth one year after nearly winning his second career race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Sebastián Saavedra starts eighteenth. The Colombian scored his first career top ten last Sunday at Belle Isle on his twenty-second birthday. Pippa Mann will start nineteenth in her first career start at Texas and second career start for Dale Coyne Racing. He Dale Coyne teammate and defending winner at Texas Justin Wilson starts twentieth ahead of Takuma Sato who did not make a qualifying attempt after a gearbox change. Simona de Silvestro starts twenty-second after her ten grid spot penalty ahead of Simon Pagenaud after his penalty and Tristan Vautier. Vautier did not make a qualifying attempt. Vautier's crew made an unapproved engine change.

Tomorrow night's Firestone 550 from Texas Motor Speedway can be seen at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC.