Morning Warm-Up: Pocono 2018

Will Power is one step closer to history starting on pole position at Pocono

Will Power won his third pole position of the season and his 53rd pole position in his IndyCar career, tying him with A.J. Foyt for second all-time. The Australian took the top spot with a two-lap average of 219.511 MPH and it is his first pole position at Pocono. This is Power's second career pole position for a 500-mile race. He won from pole position at Fontana in 2013. In that race, Power led a race-high 103 laps. That Fontana race is only one of two oval races Power has won from pole position in his career. The other was at Milwaukee in 2014. Power is attempting to become the first driver to win three consecutive Pocono race and the third driver to win three consecutive 500-mile races joining Al Unser and Bobby Unser. The pole-sitter has won seven times at Pocono. Team Penske is responsible for five of those seven victories, including the last time the pole-sitter was victorious at Pocono with Juan Pablo Montoya in 2014. The other two times saw A.J. Foyt winning from first starting position.

Josef Newgarden qualified second in another clean sweep of the front row for Team Penske. Newgarden's two-lap average was 218.802 MPH and this is the fifth time this season Team Penske has swept the front row. This is Newgarden's second front row start at Pocono. He has finished in the top ten in all five starts. After not finishing better than 16th in his first five 500-mile races, he has had eight top ten finishes in his last ten 500-mile race starts. Newgarden did not lead a lap at Mid-Ohio three weeks ago but in the prior four races he had led 366 laps. He has led 73 laps in his career at Pocono including him leading in the last four Pocono races. A top five finish this weekend would be only the second time Newgarden would have picked up consecutive top five finishes this season. He finished fourth three weeks ago at Mid-Ohio.

Alexander Rossi and Ryan Hunter-Reay form an all-Andretti Autosport row two. This is the third time this season Rossi and Hunter-Reay have started on the same row. At Road America, Hunter-Reay started third and Rossi started fourth with Hunter-Reay finishing second while Rossi finished 16th after a chamber shim issue. At Toronto, Rossi started fifth and Hunter-Reay started sixth with Rossi finishing eighth despite having to go off strategy after he broke his front wing running into the back of Power while Hunter-Reay was got in two separate incidents including himself driving into the tire barrier in turn three before be caught in a multi-car incident in turn one. Simon Pagenaud makes it three Team Penske cars in the top five. This is the first time Pagenaud has started in the top ten in consecutive Pocono races. The Frenchman had started 14th in each Pocono race to fall in an even-numbered year before this one. Robert Wickens will make his Pocono debut from sixth on the grid. The driver of the #6 Honda is sixth in the championship entering this race. This is his eighth consecutive top ten starting position.

Zach Veach matched his career best starting position of seventh position for what will be his first Pocono IndyCar start. Veach started seventh in the second Belle Isle race in June. This is only his second top ten starting position of his career. Veach made two starts at the track in Indy Lights. He started sixth and finished fourth in 2013 and he started on pole position in 2014 and led six laps before he finished second. Sébastien Bourdais ended a streak of three consecutive races starting outside the top ten with his eighth place qualifying effort. This is only the third time Bourdais has started eighth in his career. He did it at Sonoma in 2011 and finished sixth and he did it in the 2016 Grand Prix of Indianapolis where he and Tony Kanaan were caught in a turn one, lap one accident. James Hinchcliffe and Takuma Sato will start on row five. This is Hinchcliffe's fourth top ten start at Pocono and Sato has started in the top ten in every Pocono race since 2013. The two drivers combine for only two top ten finishes in this race and they have led a combined six laps with each driver having led three apiece.

Marco Andretti, who is 11th in the championship, will start 11th, the fourth consecutive year he has started outside the top ten at Pocono. This is also the sixth consecutive race Andretti has started outside the top ten this season and he has started outside the top ten in 12 of 14 races in 2018. Ed Jones will start on the outside of row six, one position worse than Jones started last year on his Pocono debut. His average finish in four oval races this year is 18.25. Championship leader Scott Dixon will roll off from the lucky 13th position. This is Dixon's third time starting outside the top ten this season, his most since 2014 when he started outside the top ten six times. Dixon won from 17th on the grid at Pocono in 2013. The last IndyCar race won from 13th on the grid was by Graham Rahal at Texas in 2015. Tony Kanaan will be next to his former Chip Ganassi Racing teammate on row seven. Kanaan has won three times when starting outside the top ten and two of those were 500-mile races. His first career victory was from 11th at Michigan in 1999 and he won the 2013 Indianapolis 500 from 12th. He also won at Iowa in 2010 from 15th.

Row eight is all-Ed Carpenter Racing with Ed Carpenter ahead of Spencer Pigot. Last year, Carpenter started 22nd and finished 12th. Carpenter has started outside the top ten in five of six Pocono appearances. Pigot makes his Pocono debut this weekend and he is still looking to finish on the lead lap for the first time in a 500-mile race. Pietro Fittipaldi will make his Pocono debut from 17th position. Fittipaldi has finished 23rd in each of his first two IndyCar starts. Graham Rahal joins Fittipaldi on row nine. The last time a Fittipaldi and a Rahal started on the same row for an IndyCar race was at Vancouver in 1997 when Bobby Rahal started 11th and Christian Fittipaldi started 12th and those drivers finished 25th and 14th respectively that day. Bobby Rahal retired after an engine failure. Charlie Kimball will start 19th. Kimball is the only driver to have qualified for every race this season and not have started in the top ten. His best starting position this season was 12th at Texas. Matheus Leist joins Kimball on row ten. Leist has started on row ten or eleven eight times this season.

The final row is comprised of Max Chilton and Conor Daly. This is Chilton's fifth time starting outside the top twenty this season, four of those have occurred on ovals. The only non-oval he started outside the top twenty was Road America. Chilton's best start on an oval was 20th at Indianapolis. Daly has finished better than his starting position in each of his two Pocono starts. He started 20th in 2016 and finished 16th and he started 17th last year before finishing 14th. This will be Daly's 16th start outside the top twenty in 43 IndyCar starts.

NBCSN's coverage of the ABC Supply 500 from Pocono Raceway begins at 1:30 p.m. ET with green flag scheduled for 2:05 p.m. ET. The race is scheduled for 200 laps.