Power, Penske Dominate Qualifying for IndyCar Grand Prix of Sonoma

Penske’s Will Power seized his ninth pole of the season at Infineon raceway in Sonoma, California, while his teammates Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe took the second and third spots.

Target Ganassi took the next two grid positions, followed by rookie sensation James Hinchcliffe, who beat all the series regulars into the Firestone Fast Six for the first time in his IndyCar career.

“The tires are the reason we went so fast,” Power told the post-qualifying press conference on IndyCar.com. “Red tires are worth basically a second, and that's what we gained and that's why everyone basically went a second faster, so that's where the pace came from.

It's great having two teammates around me, that's the optimal we could hope for as a team, so we're happy about that. We would hope we can do that tomorrow, but obviously the race will be a different story.”

Ryan Briscoe agreed. “Yeah, it's great when we can get three cars in the top 3 in qualifying. It means preparation and work effort is paying off, and we need to execute tomorrow.

“We didn't have the best of days yesterday, we had a few issues with the brakes and so on, and we've come on strong today and we were certainly fighting for the top spot all day long. It feels great; hopefully we can move up a little bit tomorrow as well.”

Dario Franchitti also said the tires made the difference, but in the opposite direction. “My car had good balance on the black tires yesterday and this morning, and we put the reds on and it disappeared pretty quickly,” he explained.  

“We worked hard to change that in the second group and it actually made the car worse.”

His teammate Scott Dixon said, “It was definitely tricky. This morning the car was pretty decent, and once the track got hot it just felt like we lost a lot of grip; it was hard to get the balance right. I was just frustrating. It was hard to get the balance right and just a bit frustrating. Q1 the car wasn't too bad, but loose, made some changes and it went slow in Q2. So it was even more of a handful.”

Obviously starting 5th is not where we desired to start, but hopefully it's a good position, and we can do fairly well, but Will [Power] seems to be quick today.

Hinchcliffe said his team also had problems early in the weekend, but managed to solve them in time for the final qualifying session.

“As a rookie, you like to think you get better as the series goes on and not get any worse, so I think we're showing that, and a lot of that is credit to the team,” he told the assembled media after qualifying. “A rookie coming into this series, it's a super tough series and you don't get a ton of testing and track time.

“We're all maximizing every stretch of the race each race weekend. We didn't get a chance to test personally last week but others did, and I had a baseline to go with.

“We didn't have the best car this morning, so the guys went out to Lowe's and bought a kitchen sink and threw it in, and it was a bit tight to get it done, but really pleased to be here in the Fast Six for the first time.”

Both Will Power and Dario Franchitti have won the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma—Franchitti in 2009 and Power in 2010. With just 47 points separating Power from the leader, Franchitti, winning here is almost a necessity for both drivers.

As the race at Loudon showed, absolutely anything can happen.  Scott Dixon, 73 points behind his teammate, could capitalize on the leaders’ problems again to create a three-way points race going into the final four events of the season.

The Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma California starts at 1:45 PT (4:45 ET) Sunday, August 28. Tickets are still available at the gate or vie the Infineon Raceway website.

The race will be broadcast on Versus starting a 4 p.m. ET.