IndyCar Iowa: Will Power leads Penske front row lockout – IndyCar

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Will Power took pole position for this weekend’s IndyCar race at Iowa, while Andretti’s Ryan Hunter-Reay managed to prevent a Penske one-two-three on the grid.

Josef Newgarden made it a provisional Penske lockout after 19 drivers had set a two-lap average on the Iowa oval, but his 181.161mph was only good enough for second on the grid.

That was because Power starred by becoming the only driver to hit a 182mph lap, doing so on both tours to set a pole speed average of 182.035mph.

Hunter-Reay was one of the final drivers to hit the track and displaced Simon Pagenaud for third by setting an average of 180.681mph, making him the only Honda-powered driver to break the 180mph benchmark.

Alexander Rossi was fifth for Andretti ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon, who was the last driver to qualify.

Robert Wickens said he did not expect to qualify inside the top 10 after his run put him seventh on the grid in his Schmidt Peterson Motorsports-run machine.

That put him ahead of Ed Jones and Ed Carpenter on the grid. Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Takuma Sato was 10th, comfortably the fastest driver in the early runs.

Those who hit the track first admitted to being stunned by how much the conditions had changed from Saturday’s earlier practice session, meaning that lap speeds were surprisingly lower than in practice.

James Hinchcliffe was 11th in the second SPM-run machine, ahead of Graham Rahal and Tony Kanaan.

Sebastien Bourdais was 15th in his Dale Coyne entry, having clipped the outside wall on his second lap.

Marco Andretti was a disappointing 19th in a two-lap run that looked particularly loose.

Starting grid