Will Power has achieved his fourth pole position of the season in the IndyCar Series circuit of Sonoma. The Australian will be joined by Newgarden in the first row. His closest rival in the championship, Hélio Castroneves will start sixth.

 

The last “normal” classification of the year was held in Sonoma, as always 2 groups of eleven drivers where the 6 fastest in each group were competing in the top 12 to advance to the Firestone Fast 6 to get the Verizon P1 Award which means a point in the championship.
In group A were Dixon, Castroneves, Briscoe, Newgarden, Andretti, Montoya, Munoz, Pagenaud, Aleshin, Conway and Huertas.
Aleshin has begun setting the pace on the soft tyres with Conway and Huertas, the other drivers used hard. Newgarden could only deal with the Russian driver with hards. In the last 3 minutes they all used soft. Castroneves with a single lap stood in first place with a minute to go, but Newgarden and Briscoe overtook the Brazilian.
Surprisingly, Andretti, Pagenaud (pretender to the title), Conway, Montoya (pretender to the title) and Carlos Huertas were eliminated in the group A.
Then it was the turn of Group B with Hunter-Reay, Kanaan, Power, Hinchcliffe, Bourdais, Kimball, Sato, Wilson, Rahal, Saavedra and Hawksworth.
After 2 minutes when no driver ventured out onto the track, the drivers were going to roll with the hard tyres with a Power which stood as the leader followed by Kanaan and Hunter-Reay. The drivers stopped in mid session to get themselves soft tyres. Rahal, Sato and Bourdais mostly climbed to first place, improving their times in the absence of a minute to go.
Finally, Rahal, Wilson, Hawksworth, Sato and Saavedra were eliminated from group B.
The Top12 was dominated by Power completing the first round with all hard. Although Castroneves, Aleshin, Briscoe and Hinchcliffe would follow a strategy of a single flying lap on the soft. Castroneves was the first out with a soft kick with 4 minutes left. The Penske managed to climb to first place, but Newgarden improved the time. Power instead had to do two laps on the soft after passing the Firestone Fast 6.
Deleted of the Top 12 and that will come from the seventh to twelfth place are: Bourdais, Kanaan, Muñoz, Hunter-Reay, Kimball and Aleshin.
Finally the Firestone Fast 6, the fight for pole position between two Penske: Castroneves and Power, two Chip Ganassi: Briscoe and Dixon; an Andretti Autosport one: Hinchcliffe; and a Sarah Fisher Hartman: Newgarden.
The session started, Newgarden was the first with a flying lap, a few minutes later Power improved by eight tenths the time of the American. Dixon was between them in mid session including being the only three drivers to complete the first try, the rest were expected to make a single attempt to get in good condition and get also tyres for the race tomorrow.
Nobody could improve time to Power, not even Castroneves who stood a few tenths, although the Brazilian suffered a runway and was penalized with time, leaving the pole again to Power.
Results:
Pos. Car Driver Team Laps Lap Time
1 12 Will Power AUS Team Penske 11 1:17,412
2 67 Josef Newgarden USA Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing 12 1:17,731 + 0,319
3 9 Scott Dixon NZL Target Chip Ganassi Racing 13 1:17,903 + 0,491
4 27 James Hinchcliffe CAN Andretti Autosport 10 1:17,955 + 0,543
5 8 Ryan Briscoe AUS NTT Data Chip Ganassi Racing 8 1:18,121 + 0,709
6 3 Helio Castroneves BRA Team Penske 6 1:18,876 + 1,464
7 11 Sébastien Bourdais FRA KVSH Racing 10 1:17,717
8 10 Tony Kanaan BRA Target Chip Ganassi Racing 10 1:17,723
9 34 Carlos Muñoz (R) COL Andretti Autosport – HVM Racing 11 1:17,725
10 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay USA Andretti Autosport 8 1:17,749
11 83 Charlie Kimball USA Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing 10 1:17,753
12 7 Mikhail Aleshin (R) RUS Schmidt Peterson Motorsports 6 1:18,770
13 15 Graham Rahal USA Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 6 1:18,124
14 25 Marco Andretti USA Andretti Autosport 6 1:18,268
15 19 Justin Wilson GBR Dale Coyne Racing 5 1:18,229
16 77 Simon Pagenaud FRA Schmidt Peterson Motorsports 5 1:18,276
17 98 Jack Hawksworth (R) GBR BHA / BBM with Curb-Agajanian 5 1:18,231
18 20 Mike Conway GBR Ed Carpenter Racing 4 1:18,351
19 14 Takuma Sato JAP A.J. Foyt Enterprises 5 1:18,410
20 2 Juan Pablo Montoya COL Team Penske 4 1:18,810
21 17 Sebastián Saavedra COL KV AFS Racing 5 1:18,520
22 18 Carlos Huertas (R) COL Dale Coyne Racing 6 1:18,960