Morning Warm-Up: Sonoma 2017

Josef Newgarden held serve on Saturday. Can he hoist the Astor Cup on Sunday?

Josef Newgarden picked up his first pole position of the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series season with a time of 75.5205 seconds in the final round of qualifying from Sonoma Raceway, a new track record. His only other pole position came at Milwaukee in 2015. Newgarden led 109 laps that day but fell to ninth while Sébastien Bourdais won the race after leading 118 laps. It is the second consecutive race Newgarden was the top Penske qualifier. The pole-sitter has won five times at Sonoma, including last year's race by Simon Pagenaud. Newgarden could become the first IndyCar champion born in the state of Tennessee. Will Power joins Newgarden on row one and he missed pole position by 0.0351 seconds. This is the first time Power has started second at Sonoma and he has never qualified worse than fourth at the track. Power has not won a race from second on the grid since Edmonton 2011. He did win at Long Beach in 2012 from 12th on the grid after qualifying second but he had to serve a ten-spot grid penalty for an engine change.

Defending IndyCar champion Simon Pagenaud will start third after qualifying 0.1151 seconds off Newgarden. This is the third consecutive year Pagenaud has started in the top five at Sonoma. Pagenaud is attempting to become the first driver to win consecutive championships since Dario Franchitti won three consecutive titles from 2009 to 2011. Hélio Castroneves makes it a clean sweep of the top four for Team Penske. This was Castroneves 12th appearance in the Firestone Fast Six in 13 Sonoma races. This is the third time Castroneves has started fourth at Sonoma in his career. Takuma Sato was the top Honda in fifth. Sato led Andretti Autosport as the top qualifier eight times in 2017. This is Sato's seventh consecutive top ten start. Scott Dixon rounded out the Fast Six. Dixon was the only driver to make every Fast Six session during the 2017 season. He started sixth at Sonoma in 2010 and finished second.

Ryan Hunter-Reay missed out on the final round of IndyCar qualifying but he will start seventh, his second consecutive race starting seventh. Hunter-Reay has started seventh twice previously at Sonoma and in both races he finished 18th.  Alexander Rossi qualified eighth and his championship hope needs a prayer. With Newgarden picking up the bonus point for pole position and Newgarden will also likely pick up a point for leading a lap, Rossi needs to win the races and lead the most laps and Newgarden to finish 22nd, dead last, just to have a shot at winning the championship. Graham Rahal starts on the inside of row five. Rahal has completed every lap in eight of his nine Sonoma starts. The one exception was in 2009 when a driveshaft failure ended his race after 30 of 75 laps. Sébastien Bourdais rounded out the top ten and the Frenchman finished tenth in last year's Sonoma race. Bourdais has advanced to the second round of qualifying in his last five road/street course race appearances.

Marco Andretti and Tony Kanaan each made the second round of qualifying for the fifth time this season at Sonoma and the former teammates will start on row six. Andretti has finished in the top ten in three of the last four Sonoma races. Kanaan has finished 13th in three of the last four Sonoma races. Andretti has not finished in the top ten in the last four races while Kanaan is coming off the heels of back-to-back retirements. Conor Daly will start 13th. This is the second time Daly has started a race from 13th in his IndyCar career. He started and finished 13th last year at Long Beach. Max Chilton was the first driver to miss the second round of qualifying from group two and he will start 14th. Chilton is 13 points outside the top ten in the championship. Chilton was as high as tenth in the championship after the Indianapolis 500 and Iowa.

Charlie Kimball failed to advance from the first round of qualifying at Sonoma for the first time since 2012 and he will start 15th. Kimball has finished on the lead lap and in the top ten in the last two Sonoma races after having not finished on the lead lap in his first four starts at the track. James Hinchcliffe joins Kimball on row eight. Like Chilton, the Canadian is 13 points outside the top ten in the championship. Hinchcliffe won from 16th on the grid in the rain-shortened race at NOLA Motorsports Park in 2015. Spencer Pigot will start 17th in his final race as the road/street course driver in the #20 Chevrolet. Pigot could finish in the top twenty in the championship despite missing five races. The 2017 IndyCar Rookie of the Year Ed Jones joins Pigot in row nine. Bourdais qualified ahead of Jones in five of the eight races they were teamed for but Jones was the top qualifier for Dale Coyne Racing nine times this season.

Jack Harvey makes his third career IndyCar start from 19th position. He won his only two Indy Lights starts at the track in 2014. Harvey is joined by another Sonoma Indy Lights winner on row ten, as J.R. Hildebrand will start 20th. This will be Hildebrand's final race with Ed Carpenter Racing as Pigot moves to the #21 Chevrolet for 2018. This is the six time in 2017 Hildebrand has started on row ten or worse. Zachary Claman DeMelo makes his IndyCar debut from 21st on the grid. DeMelo is set to be the ninth Quebec-born driver to start an IndyCar race. Of the previous eight Quebec drivers to start an IndyCar race, seven picked up a podium finish in their IndyCar career. The one who did was Claude Bourbonnais. Carlos Muñoz rounds out the grid in 22nd. This is the fifth time Muñoz has started outside the top twenty this season and the 11th start outside the top twenty in his career.

NBCSN's coverage of the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma begins at 6:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 6:40 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 85 laps.