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