Looking to give KV Racing Technology - Lotus its first win in the IZOD IndyCar Series, Tony Kanaan used a blistering pace to capture the pole for the IZOD IndyCar Series World Championship at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The pole was the first of the season for Kanaan, who spent last week competing at the Ironman World Championship.
Going out late in the session, Kanaan bested Oriol Servia by a scant 0.0057 of a second, setting a pole speed of 222.078 miles per hour. Servia will start on the outside of Row 1 as the only other driver to break 222 mph, qualifying at 222.061 mph. SB Nation
“It feels awesome,” said Kanaan, whose last earned pole came at Richmond in June 2008. “I guess I’ve got to do more Ironmans on my weekends off. I can’t thank the GEICO-KV guys enough. We had such an awful race at Kentucky (started 19th, finished 17th) that we needed to turn it around. They went back to the shop to massage that car as much as they could and it paid off.”
“Front row is the best place to start for a race as crazy as this one is going to be so I am very happy with our position and I think we have a great shot at it (win),” said Servia, who was runner-up in the final Champ Car race at the speedway in 2005.
Five different teams are represented in the top 5, and eight in the top 10. IndyCar.com
The setup for the finale is a rematch of last year’s finisher, only with Will Franchitti in the lead and Will Power chasing.-
Franchitti won the previous duel, not to mention his second straight title and third overall, overcoming an 11-point deficit when a pit-road mishap dropped Power well back and left him unable to make up ground.
This time, the backdrop is the bright lights of The Strip with Franchitti leading by 18 points. ESPN
“Speed means so much at this track and we’re still just trying to get more out of the Verizon car,” said Power, who started from the pole at the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway two weeks ago. “That’s definitely not the result we wanted out of qualifying but we know that this is going to be a pack race and hopefully we can use that to our advantage and move forward.”
Not including the two bonus points in play for leading the most laps, Franchitti wraps up his third consecutive series title with a top-three finish no matter Power’s result. Power needs to win the race if Franchitti finishes fourth through seventh. Prospective bonus points come into play the further down the finishing order. IndyCar.com
Danica Patrick has a shot at a second gender-breaking win, qualifying ninth in her final race as a full-time IndyCar driver before heading off to NASCAR.
Patrick will end her seven-year run as an IndyCar driver after this weekend in the desert, heading off to race a full-time schedule in the Nationwide Series with a handful of Sprint Cup races mixed in.
The first woman to win an IndyCar race and the sport’s most marketable star, she had the fastest time in practice at just under 225 mph, but lost nearly 5 mph in qualifying.
“This will be a pack race on Sunday,” Patrick said. “So while it is nice to qualify toward the front of the field, I’m not sure that will be a big factor for the race. If you have a fast car in the race, I think you will move to the front pretty quickly.” ESPN
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