Will Power has taken pole position for the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. This comes off of Power hitting the wall in the first practice session and battling a stomach virus. Along with Power winning pole position, Team Penske would lock out the top 4 positions for the second year in a row. Simon Pagenaud would come home second with Helio Castroneves in third and Juan Pablo Montoya rounding out Team Penske in fourth.
Group 1 qualifying would end with a big shock having 3 Andretti Autosports drivers Carlos Munoz, Marco Andretti, and Alexander Rossi failing to advance into the top twelve. Every rookie would also take part in the first group with all of them also being eliminated. Max Chilton would come out on top of the rookie class qualifying in the 17th position. Another big surprise would be Ganassi driver Tony Kanaan being eliminated in group two ending up in 20th position behind his rookie teammate Max Chilton.
Round 2 would see what looked to be a potential pole winner in Jack Hawksworth end up fail to get into the Firestone Fast Six. Hawksworth who struggled last season would not leave the top 8 in any practice session only to qualify in 10th place. There would also be an incident where James Hinchcliffe would make contact with Juan Pablo Montoya bringing in question if Montoyas time would stand. Officials would go on to ask Graham Rahal who qualified in 7th to leave his race gear on in the case of a penalty for Montoya. There would end up being no penalty for the Columbian thus staying and advancing into the Fast Six.
The Firestone Fast Six would include all of Team Penske along with former Champions Scott Dixon and Ryan Hunter-Reay. We would not know for sure who would be the pole sitter until the very last seconds when it looked like Simon Pagenaud would take home pole Will Power would steal it with seconds left in the sessions. Power would win pole and set a new track record with a 1:00:2450 breaking his own previous record. Along with Will Powers pole and Penske dominance Chevrolet would also sweep the top 5.
| INDYCAR 2016: ST. PETERSBURG QUALIFYING – RESULTS | |||
| Car No. | Driver | Engine | Grid Pos. |
| 1 | Will Power | Chevrolet | 1 |
| 22 | Simon Pagenaud | Chevrolet | 2 |
| 3 | Helio Castroneves | Chevrolet | 3 |
| 2 | Juan Pablo Montoya | Chevrolet | 4 |
| 9 | Scott Dixon | Chevrolet | 5 |
| 28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | Honda | 6 |
| 15 | Graham Rahal | Honda | 7 |
| 11 | Sebastien Bourdais | Chevrolet | 8 |
| 5 | James Hinchliffe | Honda | 9 |
| 41 | Jack Hawksworth | Honda | 10 |
| 14 | Takuma Sato | Honda | 11 |
| 21 | Josef Newgarden | Chevrolet | 12 |
| 26 | Carlos Munoz | Honda | 13 |
| 83 | Charlie Kimball | Chevrolet | 14 |
| 27 | Marco Andretti | Honda | 15 |
| 19 | Luca Filippi | Honda | 16 |
| 8 | Max Chilton ® | Chevrolet | 17 |
| 7 | Mikail Aleshin | Honda | 18 |
| 98 | Alexander Rossi ® | Honda | 19 |
| 10 | Tony Kanaan | Chevrolet | 20 |
| 18 | Conor Daly | Honda | 21 |
| 16 | Spencer Pigot ® | Honda | 22 |
Featured Image Credit – www.indycar.com – http://www.indycar.com/News/2016/03/03-12-St-Pete-qualifying
