IndyCar — Qualifying report for Race 1 at Detroit’s Belle Isle

With so many series on track this weekend, and the Verizon IndyCar Series running a double-header, qualifying reverts to the old-school method of setting a singular fast lap in a timed session. To ease track congestion, though, the 22-car field was separated into two groups with each group given twelve minutes to do their fastest.

Group 1 included Tony Kanaan, Josef Newgarden, Simon Pagenaud, Will Power, James Hinchcliffe, Marco Andretti, Spencer Pigot, Ed Jones, Takuma Sato, Graham Rahal, and former Haas F1 driver Esteban Gutierrez who is in the Dale Coyne Racing No. 18 for the remainder of the season, or at least until Sebastien Bourdais is able to return to racing. Most everyone started out on blacks, but by the end, about half of the drivers were on sticker reds. Pigot continues to struggle in his Ed Carpenter Racing No. 20 machine and tapped the outside wall on the exit of Turn 4 hard enough to end his qualifying session. Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato, who posted the two fastest times in the session, were on reds with Rahal set a new qualifying record for Belle Isle with a lap time of 1:13.9681.

The rest of the field were in Group 2 and included Helio Castroneves, Alexander Rossi, Mikhail Aleshin, J.R. Hildebrand, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Oriol Servia, Conor Daly, Max Chilton, Scott Dixon, Charlie Kimball, and Carlos Munoz. Everyone except Servia started out on scuffed blacks, but they all finished the session on sticker reds. Rossi had the fastest time of the session for a time in spite of brushing the wall on the exit of Turn 6. It was light contact and he was able to continue, but ran out of time to improve his position. Helio Castroneves set a blistering lap of 1:13.8901, resetting the qualifying record and taking the Pole from Rahal. …for a moment.

Castroneves had already placed the P1 award sticker on the rear wing of his No. 3 Team Penske racer and was celebrating in front of the assembled photographers when IndyCar officials informed him that Race Control was deliberating on rescinding his fastest lap as a penalty for not slowing through a local yellow. After a couple of tense minutes, the official word came down that his record-setting lap would be discounted, giving the pole position and the official track record to Graham Rahal. Helio and the rest of Team Penske were livid, although none of them would speak immediately to IMS Radio.

Rahal’s pole-setting pace comes as no surprise as he was fastest in Practice 1 and second fasted behind Castroneves in Practice 2. Although not starting in P1, Helio will still start on the front row, and with the Red Mist still strong in the Brazilian’s eyes, Turn 1 this afternoon will be exciting to watch. Race 1 is this afternoon on ABC here in the US at 3:30pm EDT.

Starting Grid for Race 1 for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix