Castroneves reaches elite level with 50th career pole position

ELKHART LAKE, Wisconsin (Saturday, June 24, 2017) – Helio Castroneves reached a level a select few have achieved in Indy car history by taking the Verizon P1 Award in qualifying for the KOHLER Grand Prix at Road America.

Castroneves collected the landmark 50th pole position of his Indy car career by running a lap of 1 minute, 41.3007 seconds (142.649 mph) in the Firestone Fast Six, the last of three rounds of knockout qualifying on the 4.014-mile, 14-turn permanent road course in east-central Wisconsin. The driver of the No. 3 REV Group Team Penske Chevrolet broke a tie for third on the all-time list with Bobby Unser, leaving Castroneves behind only Mario Andretti (67) and A.J. Foyt (53) atop the Indy car career poles chart.

“Our REV Group car was really on rails, especially when we started laying down laps in the end with the new red Firestone (alternate) tires,” Castroneves said. “The car was really, really good.

“When we saved the tires till the end, we made some adjustments that were just perfect, just perfect. … I was able to lay down a good lap.”

KOHLER GRAND PRIX: Qualifying results

Castroneves led a Team Penske sweep of the top four qualifying positions. Joining him on the front row in Sunday’s race will be Will Power, whose lap of 1:41.3611 (142.564 mph) in the No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet puts the defending Road America race winner on the first row for the third time in four career starts at the track.

“Really happy to be on the front row,” said Power, who led 46 of 50 laps to win from the pole a year ago at Road America. “Obviously to be clipped by the old guy (Castroneves) just there on the line, (by) six-hundredths (of a second) – he gets faster as he gets older, like wine, matured.”

Josef Newgarden qualified third in the No. 2 DeVilbiss Team Penske Chevrolet (1:41.6608, 142.143 mph), with reigning Verizon IndyCar Series champion Simon Pagenaud fourth in the No. 1 Menards Team Penske Chevrolet (1:42.0385, 141.617 mph). It marked the fourth time that Team Penske has swept the top four qualifying positions for an Indy car race, with Castroneves’ pole the 251st in team history.

“We’ve all been fast all weekend,” said Newgarden, who equaled his season-best qualifying performance. “We knew it was going to be tough to beat us top four. What is good, we’ve kind of had the top four spots with all of us all weekend. We wanted to make sure we continued that in qualifying and the race. Luckily, we didn’t really drop in performance, so that was good.”

Scott Dixon remained the only Verizon IndyCar Series driver to reach the Firestone Fast Six at every event where it’s been held this season. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver qualified fifth in the No. 9 NTT Data Honda (1:42.9308, 140.389 mph). Graham Rahal will start sixth in the No. 15 GEHL / D-A Lubricant Honda for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (1:45.0464, 137.562 mph).

Marco Andretti set a season-best qualifying performance on a road or street course and will start eighth in the No. 27 Andretti Autosport Honda (1:42.8614, 140.484 mph). Mikhail Aleshin, forced to miss practice Friday while settling visa issues to allow him to travel to the United States, was back in the No. 7 SMP Racing Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda today and qualified 19th (1:43.8891, 139.094 mph).

“I’m happy to be here,” said the Russian driver who had been stuck in France following last week’s 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. “I’m happy I got the visa. I’m happy to race for this team, in this series, in this country.”

A final 30-minute warmup practice starts at 9 a.m. ET Sunday and streams live on RaceControl.IndyCar.com . The race distance has been extended five laps to 55 this year. Live race coverage begins at 12:30 p.m. on NBCSN and the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network.

Mazda Road to Indy race recap

Matheus Leist backed up his win in last month’s Freedom 100 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway by driving to victory today in the first of two Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires race this weekend at Road America. The Carlin driver defeated Santi Urrutia of Belardi Auto Racing by 6.1667 seconds.

Anthony Martin (Cape Motorsports) held off a charging Victor Franzoni (Juncos Racing) to win the second race of the Pro Mazda Championship presented by Cooper Tires weekend, a day after Franzoni beat Martin to the checkered flag in the first race. Franzoni started last in the 15-car field in today’s race, but quickly moved to the front to challenge Martin in the closing laps.

In the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship powered by Mazda, rookie Rinus VeeKay won today’s race to complete a weekend sweep. They are the first victories in the series for the Dutch driver and rewarded Wisconsin-based Pabst Racing with two wins at its home track.