Qualifying session in Gateway has been, as expected, fully dominated by Team Penske, whose four drivers are on top four positions. Poleman has been, thanks to his great skills qualifying and to being the last driver to do his laps, Will Power.
Practice session had shown that Penske and Chevrolet were on top, and this hasn’t changed on qualifying. Will Power, the last driver on track, claims Pole with a stunning 189.642 Mph of average speed. Josef Newgarden has been second with Hélio Castroneves third and Simon Pagenaud fourth.
But it hasn’t been Penske but all Chevrolets who have performed better. A.J. Foyt Enterprises gets its best qualifying of the year, with Carlos Muñoz 8th and Conor Daly 11th. Ed Carpenter has been 5th with JR Hildebrand, the worst among the Chevys, 15th.
As for Honda, Takuma Sato has been the best of them after qualifying 6th with a 184.186. His team-mates have achieved average to weak results: 9th for Alex Rossi, 14th for Ryan Hunter-Reay and 20th for Marco Andretti.
Who has actually suffered is Ganassi team which, despite championship runner-up Scott Dixon, who has been 7th today; has performednot good at all with Max Chilton 16th, Tony Kanaan 17th and Charlie Kimball 18th.
The rest of Honda drivers are spread around the middle and the bottom of the table. Graham Rahal, best Honda in standings after Dixon, has qualifyied 13th. Sébastien Bourdais has been 19th on his comeback with his team-mate, Ed Jones, 12th. The other team, SPM, has put James Hinchcliffe in 10th place and Sebastian Saavedra 21st and last.
And that’s a wrap for the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 qualifying session. The race will start tomorrow at 7:30 PM local time.
