St. Pete Indy Lights Qualifying
By Patrick Stephan of TrackSideOnline.com presented by Honda Racing/HPD
Wow, all this back to back to back has me falling behind already. Need a series I don’t cover to get out and run.
Anyway, Ed Jones, bested his Carlin Racing teammate Max Chilton took take the pole in the first official qualifying session for the new IL-15 Indy Lights machine. New cars, new drivers and a new team that has just moved here from Europe is already up front.
Jack Harvey, who lost last years Indy Lights title to Gabby Chaves by like the third tie breaker timed in third quick.
Jones lap of 1:05.319, is a new track record, beating James Hinchcliffe’s old mark of 1:06.3497 set in 2010’s qualifying.
In fact, the top 5 all broke the old record.
Scott Hargrove came back from the turn 10 run off to time in fourth. Shelby Blackstock timed in 12th after bringing out the red on his first lap of the session. He had backed in to the wall lightly on the exit of turn 14. The Andretti Autosport team was able to make repairs and get him back out though he ran 6-8 laps less than most of his competitors.
P | No | Name | FTime | Diff | Laps | FL |
1 | 11 | Ed Jones | 01:05.32 | 0 | 17 | 17 |
2 | 14 | Max Chilton | 01:05.41 | 0.0859 | 17 | 17 |
3 | 42 | Jack Harvey | 01:05.86 | 0.5429 | 19 | 18 |
4 | 8 | Scott Hargrove | 01:05.92 | 0.6027 | 18 | 17 |
5 | 12 | Spencer Pigot | 01:06.13 | 0.8086 | 18 | 16 |
6 | 18 | Kyle Kaiser | 01:06.34 | 1.0217 | 17 | 14 |
7 | 4 | Felix Serralles | 01:06.36 | 1.0442 | 20 | 17 |
8 | 83 | Matthew Brabham | 01:06.68 | 1.3585 | 19 | 17 |
9 | 7 | RC Enerson | 01:06.72 | 1.4008 | 19 | 18 |
10 | 77 | Scott Anderson | 01:07.06 | 1.7435 | 19 | 19 |
11 | 5 | Juan Piedrahita | 01:07.08 | 1.7587 | 20 | 19 |
12 | 51 | Shelby Blackstock | 01:07.58 | 2.2595 | 12 | 12 |
13 | 71 | Ethan Ringel | 01:07.76 | 2.4389 | 17 | 14 |