IndyCar Barber: Castroneves leads Penske 1-2-3

Helio Castroneves

Helio Castroneves led a Team Penske sweep of the top-3 in Verizon IndyCar Series qualifying today at Barber Motorsports Park, capturing pole position for tomorrow's Honda Grand Prix of Alabama. The pole is the 43rd of Castroneves' career, and his second in a row after winning pole last week at Long Beach.

Will Power was second 0.198 seconds behind the Brazilian with Simon Pagenaud third. Long Beach winner Scott Dixon was fourth with Josef Newgarden fifth and Tony Kanaan sixth.

Sebastien Bourdais made it a Chevrolet sweep of the top-7 as only 2 Hondas made it to the final-12 qualifiers. Once again, Graham Rahal was the fastest Honda in 8th. Also, of note is no Andretti Autosport Hondas made it past round one qualifying.

Series championship leader Juan Pablo Montoya was a disappointing 15th, with two-time defending Barber winner Ryan Hunter-Reay an uncharacteristic 18th.

More to follow…

Quotes

Power leads group of cars over crest

WILL POWER (No. 1 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet): "We were very strong in qualifying, but unfortunately it rained before the end. I just kick myself because the two laps I did there in the Fast Six I didn't go harder. But I'm very happy to be starting on the front row considering last week (at Long Beach). Starting up front is huge here – we can win from there. That's definitely the plan tomorrow. It's been a slow start to the season and I'm very determined to get that first win of the year. I've been knocking on the door so we'll see if we can get the Verizon car up there tomorrow."

JUAN PABLO MONTOYA (No. 2 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, series points leader): "Nothing too terribly wrong with the No. 2 Hawk Performance Chevy in qualifying, we just struggled to put a good lap together. We did have a few issues with the balance of the car. It is what it is. It's tough because on these tires you really only get one lap and I missed it on that lap. The Hawk Performance Chevy is good, though, and we'll do our best to pick our way through the field and towards the front."

HELIO CASTRONEVES (No. 3 AAA Insurance Team Penske Chevrolet, Verizon P1 Award Winner): "It's all about team effort. Today is just another team effort. You can see it's 1-2-3. Juan Pablo is not there. But for us every practice is qualifying. That helped us to push ourselves to be in this position. It's not about because we have success here. I think it's part of it, but all the drivers as well, like Simon and Juan Pablo, they have their share. It's in the equipment. In the end of the day it's a team effort. Everyone is working hard."

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]STEFANO COLETTI (No. 4 KV Racing Technology Chevrolet): "I am a bit disappointed with how qualifying went today. We haven't really found the grip that we need so I am sliding around and can't put down a lap time. Unfortunately that is where we are right now but the team is working hard to try and solve it and hopefully we will have a better day tomorrow."

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE (No. 5 Arrow/Lucas Oil Schmidt Peterson Honda): "It was a solid day for the No. 5 Arrow Electronics team. Getting in the top ten is obviously a good effort from the crew. I wish we maybe could've had a little more and gotten another row out of it, but there's certainly been progress for the condensed schedule and limited track time. I think the guys did a great job tuning on the car so now we just have to switch gears and get into race mode. We have a lot of work to do after Long Beach. Hopefully this race is less processional and we can use some strategy to get some passes done on track. We'll try to outsmart and outdrive some guys, but all in all, I'm really proud of the boys and looking forward to the race tomorrow."

JAMES JAKES (No. 7 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda): "We made some good progress throughout the day today. It was nice to get one of the SPM cars in the top ten. The No. 7 UMP HelpForScoliosis.com car is just outside it so we made some great gains. We just need to find a few more tenths and then we should be right there battling for quickest Honda. I think we can do that tomorrow, get both cars in the mix and go from there. Obviously it's going to be warmer, dry and no sign of rain tomorrow so conditions will be a little bit different, but we made some good progress and we'll just focus on the race."

Sage Karam

SAGE KARAM (No. 8 Comfort Revolution / Big Machine Records Chevrolet): "I really just spent the morning getting comfortable in the car again and adjusting. My wrist is back to almost 100% and my confidence is back up from the last time we tested here. Qualifying was a big step in the right direction for us. It was the first time we got out of Q1 so that was huge. I'm happy with the way things are going and can't wait to get the race started and see what the car can do."

SCOTT DIXON (No. 9 Coke Chevrolet): "The Coke car felt pretty good early in the day and we unloaded fast off of the truck. I think there is a little more pressure in getting up to speed quickly here as the weekend went from a traditional three-day format to a two-day format. Qualifying for us went well, and I understand they had to cut it just a bit short after the five minutes of guaranteed green-flag time had been satisfied. Helio put up a great lap when it counted and we'll shoot at the top three Penske cars tomorrow."

TONY KANAAN (No. 10 NTT Data Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet): "Qualifying in the top six here at Barber Motorsports Park feels really good, especially after how close we were last weekend to moving on in Long Beach. We didn't have the best first practice this morning, but we were able to make some changes and have a much better second practice. The car just felt really good the first two rounds of qualifying. Once it started raining and the track started getting wet I just didn't feel like I was going to be able to advance much more and we didn't want to waste the tires, so we decided to come in and take sixth. I think we have a lot of momentum as a team going in to tomorrow."

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS (No. 11 Team Mistic E-Cigs-KVSH Chevrolet): "The Mistic machine was in the top five in both the practice sessions, so we had hopes that we would stay there. We missed the Firestone Fast Six by just a couple hundredths of a second, so obviously we are a little disappointed. It can go either way in these conditions. It wasn't my greatest lap and we just seem to be struggling a little bit on road courses when we put the red (alternate) tires on. We are getting better, but we still need to fine tune the thing. The Mistic guys did a good job today, now we just have to go get the car ready for race day."

GRAHAM RAHAL (No. 15 Steak 'n Shake Honda): "It (fastest lap) was a really good lap. I don't know if there was much left in the Steak 'n Shake car. These guys worked very hard, we weren't very good in the second practice and we fought back here in qualifying. It's good to be the fastest Honda. We have to close the gap and get up there, get more competitive. It feels good to be where we are but we've got all these Penske's and Ganassi's we've got to keep up with which is pretty challenging. I think we have a good chance in the race starting eighth. Anything can happen here. We've got to be smart and we've got to take care of the rear tires. Hopefully it's a little easier to follow than Long Beach. I think we can get a good result. I feel good about it."

LUCA FILIPPI (No. 20 Fuzzy's Vodka CFH Racing Chevrolet): "It has been a good team effort with both cars in the Top 10 and Josef Newgarden making it to the Fast 6. I thought we could have qualified a little higher than ninth, but it is a good place to start the race. I am sure we will have a strong pace tomorrow and be able to build on that. We are looking forward to a good result for both cars!"

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]SIMON PAGENAUD (No. 22 Penske Truck Rental Chevrolet): "It's interesting here with the aero kits with all the high-speed corners and the hairpin – so we get to see what the aero kits are doing at different speeds. It really helps the teams to understand the new bits and pieces as we try to optimize them. I love this track, but the only thing I would say is the level of commitment is beyond limits. You really have to push yourself before you get in the car and kind of turn off your brain a bit. But it's fun."

CARLOS MUNOZ (No. 26 AndrettiTV Cinsay Honda): "For sure it's been a disappointing day. Unfortunately, we were not really competitive in any of the sessions. It's really strange, because as a team, previously we've been really quick at this track. We just don't have the balance right. For tomorrow's race we'll see what happens. We're going to be really risky with our strategy, so we'll see how it goes."

MARCO ANDRETTI (No. 27 Snapple Honda): "We're just struggling right now with understeer, but we had to sort of back off and gap. We only had one timed lap on the new tires, so the tires weren't completely in on that lap because I couldn't push on the out lap. I think that's what cost us the one-tenth (of a second) we missed (advancing to the top 12) by. We're all trying to find the sweet spot, and I don't think we have yet. We always have decent race cars here, but we have to see. We've been on new tires all day today so we have to see where the degradation goes."

RYAN HUNTER-REAY (No. 28 DHL Honda): "We just caught slower traffic there, I gave (Francesco Dracone) a huge gap to begin with knowing he was off pace, and I just caught him over and over again every lap. It's our own fault for putting ourselves out there in that position though… We're all in the same boat. We're all trying really hard to make it better. I love this racetrack and it's a shame we're not getting around here quicker right now. But we'll be working hard at it, that's for sure."

JOSEF NEWGARDEN (No. 67 Hartman Oil CFH Racing Chevrolet): "We're getting there. We definitely didn't have enough for Helio Castroneves, Will Power, or Scott Dixon. We aren't right up there in pole territory, but at least we are consistently in Fast Six territory. That's a good improvement for us and I am excited about that. We have a little work to do on our race car to make it consistently faster over a stint. Our team is strong, the Hartman Oil crew is full of good guys and good resources. We need to put it together and have a good, solid result tomorrow."

CHARLIE KIMBALL (No. 83 Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet): "Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing was excited to make it out of Group 1 and advance into the Top 12. The No. 83 NovoLog FlexPen Chevrolet is pretty quick and to have all four Ganassi cars in the Top 12 is a solid result for the day. I'm excited to go racing tomorrow. We always have a pretty good race here and the guys have been really consistent on pit lane so far this season. We'll just be smart tomorrow and hopefully have a good clean race."

Starting lineup