Josef Newgarden has taken the pole position for the last race of the season in Verizon IndyCar Series at Sonoma Raceway, California. It is the second pole position for Newgarden who lead a one-two-three-four for Team Penske.
In the first group, it was the championship leader Josef Newgarden (Team Penske) who showed a great performance setting the track record of 1:15.792. Meanwhile, Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing) was struggling to get his access to Top12.
Despite that, it was Conor Daly (A.J. Foyt Enterprises), Charlie Kimball (Chip Ganassi Racing), Spencer Pigot (Ed Carpenter Racing), Jack Harvey (Schmidt Peterson Motorsports) and rookie Zachary Claman de Melo (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) who didn’t advance to the Top12.
In the second group, Penske drivers Will Power and Simon Pagenaud get the access to Top12 after two runs with black tires. Their team-mate, Helio Castroneves also get the access to Top12 despite a lonely run on black tires early in the session.
The ones who didn’t advance to the following run were: Max Chilton (Chip Ganassi Racing), James Hinchcliffe (Schmidt Peterson Motorsports), Ed Jones (Dale Coyne Racing), JR Hildebrand (Ed Carpenter Racing) and Carlos Muñoz (A.J. Foyt Enterprises).
In the second round, Penske drivers top the timesheets with a one-two-three-four lead by Simon Pagenaud who set a new track record with a lap-time of 1:15.712. The Chevy drivers managed to beat the Honda’s of Takuma Sato (Andretti Autosport) and Scott Dixon, who joined the Fast6 positions after an intense final of the session.
The eliminated drivers this time were: Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosport), Alexander Rossi (Andretti Herta Autosport), Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing), Sébastien Bourdais (Dale Coyne Racing), Marco Andretti (Andretti Autosport) and Tony Kanaan (Chip Ganassi Racing).
The final battle for pole position, Josef Newgarden surprised everyone setting the track record and the pole position with a sticker red tires. The championship leader takes an important bonus point for the championship fight.
His rivals finished close to him, Power, Pagenaud and Castroneves finished from 2nd to 4th, setting another one-two-three-four for Team Penske. Sato and Dixon followed them.