Will Power’s quick start to his IndyCar championship defence has continued with the Australian securing pole position for the season-opening race in Florida.
Power claimed pole for the fifth time at the Grand Prix of St Petersburg with a fastest lap of one minute and 00.6931 seconds at the 1.8 mile street circuit in Saturday’s (Sunday AEDT) qualifying.
The 34-year-old’s time was enough to secure pole position by a narrow margin from teammate Simon Pagenaud, who clocked a 1:00.7252 fastest lap.
Team Penske locked out all four top spots in the grid with Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya qualifying third and fourth fastest.
Power is a two-time winner at St Petersburg and put up a victory plaque to honour his 2014 success at the Victory Circle near turn 10 on Saturday.
After securing the 37th pole position of his IndyCar career, Power said there was no doubt it will be his own in-form teammates who’ll pose the biggest threat in Sunday’s (Monday AEDT) 110-lap event.
“I was really satisfied to get pole here today,” Power said.
“All the practice sessions are working towards that, literally one lap, that gets you pole. It’s a session where everyone gives it everything they’ve absolutely got.
“Team Penske has definitely made ground over the winter over the other teams. I think it’s going to be a pretty interesting four-way battle amongst the team and Scott Dixon is right in there as well.
“I expect those five to be the championship contenders.”
Power’s efforts not only secured him pole position but he set and reset the track record that France’s Sebastien Bourdais (1:00.928) held since the inaugural St Petersburg Indy car race in 2003.
Power lowered the standard to 1:00.8344 in the opening round of qualifying and then bettered it with a lap of 1:00.6509 in round two.
The Toowoomba product believed he could have gone faster again if he’d had a clean lap in the waning seconds of qualifying too.
“It’s really difficult these days to do that. You don’t see anyone getting more than three or four poles during a season now,” he said.
“It’s the same for wins. Anytime you’re at that end of an INDYCAR field, it’s awesome.”
Meanwhile another Australian shone in the Indy Lights support category with Matt Brabham, grandson of three-time Formula One world champion Sir Jack Brabham, setting a lap record for the development series in their opening race of the weekend.
Brabham overcame damage and a drive-through penalty to eclipse Sebastian Saavedra’s previous lap record by 0.8 seconds during the first of two races at the street circuit.
Brabham eventually finished 11th and will start Sunday’s second race from sixth on the grid.
“We know we have the pace on board, we just have to start moving forward and stay out of trouble and we can hopefully gain a top result to end the weekend and use that to build on for the remainder of the season,” he said.
