Power ties Andretti’s pole position record at Gateway

IndyCar

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Will Power won the pole position for the St. Louis 500 at Gateway Motorsports Park, the 67th pole of his IndyCar career – tying Mario Andretti’s record for the most pole positions in the history of major American open-wheel racing.

The qualifying format for tomorrow’s 500 kilometre, 260-lap race around Gateway was the fastest two-lap average speed, similar to the format used at the Indianapolis 500.

Power had to wait until the very end of qualifying as the number one driver in the championship, but with a friendly cloud cover and wind assisting his run, he set a sensational two-lap average of 182.727 miles per hour (294.071 kilometres per hour). He completed the run in 49.254 seconds.

In addition to matching the historic milestone, Power has also gained one bonus point in the IndyCar Series championship battle. He now sits seven points ahead of second-ranked Scott Dixon, and 13 ahead of Marcus Ericsson.

Ericsson will share the front row with Power after qualifying second-fastest. In fact, all of the ‘championship seven’ drivers, who entered the weekend separated by just 59 points, qualified in the top seven positions.

Penske team mates Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin were third and fourth respectively, followed by Ganassi team mates Alex Palou and Scott Dixon, fifth and sixth.

McLaren SP driver Pato O’Ward qualified seventh, just minutes after his team mate Felix Rosenqvist spun at turn two on the first lap of his qualification attempt. Rosenqvist will start 26th and last tomorrow, not ideal as he seeks a strong run to ensure his IndyCar future – be it with McLaren or another organisation.

Veteran Takuma Sato qualified eighth, ahead of Romain Grosjean who set the ninth-fastest time. However, Grosjean will serve a nine-place grid penalty for an unapproved engine change before the weekend. This demotes the Franco-Swiss driver to 18th on the grid, and elevates his rookie team mate Devlin DeFrancesco to a career-best ninth place starting position.

DeFrancesco will share the fifth row with Alexander Rossi, who completed the top ten in qualifying.

Further back, Helio Castroneves – who just signed a contract extension taking him into his age 48 season in 2023 – qualified 18th, ahead of another recent contract signee, Christian Lundgaard.

Jimmie Johnson, who hasn’t run at Gateway since 2001 in NASCAR’s second-tier national series, qualified 21st, a disappointing result for the oval specialist.

IndyCar fans in the UK and Ireland should prepare for a late start as the green flag waves at 23:30 BST / 17:30 CST (local time).

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St. Louis 500 qualifying results (grid penalties applied)

Position Car Driver Team Engine
1 12 Will Power Penske Chevrolet
2 8 Marcus Ericsson Ganassi Honda
3 2 Josef Newgarden Penske Chevrolet
4 3 Scott McLaughlin Penske Chevrolet
5 10 Alex Palou Ganassi Honda
6 9 Scott Dixon Ganassi Honda
7 5 Pato O’Ward McLaren SP Chevrolet
8 51 Takuma Sato Coyne/RWR Honda
9 29 Devlin DeFrancesco Andretti Steinbrenner Honda
10 27 Alexander Rossi Andretti Honda
11 26 Colton Herta Andretti Honda
12 18 David Malukas Coyne/HMD Honda
13 60 Simon Pagenaud Meyer Shank Honda
14 45 Jack Harvey RLL Honda
15 20 Conor Daly Carpenter Chevrolet
16 15 Graham Rahal RLL Honda
17 6 Helio Castroneves Meyer Shank Honda
18 28 Romain Grosjean Andretti Honda
19 30 Christian Lundgaard RLL Honda
20 14 Kyle Kirkwood Foyt Chevrolet
21 48 Jimmie Johnson Ganassi Honda
22 77 Callum Ilott Juncos Hollinger Chevrolet
23 21 Rinus VeeKay Carpenter Chevrolet
24 4 Dalton Kellett Foyt Chevrolet
25 33 Ed Carpenter Carpenter Chevrolet
26 7 Felix Rosenqvist McLaren SP Chevrolet

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Author information

RJ O'Connell
Motorsport has been a lifelong interest for RJ, both virtual and ‘in the carbon’, since childhood. RJ picked up motorsports writing as a hobby...

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2 comments on “Power ties Andretti’s pole position record at Gateway”

  1. One of the best of all time. Congrats WP!

  2. Joe Cointreau
    20th August 2022, 16:38

    To be fair, Andretti was distracted by Formula 1 for a bit.

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