Kimball Leads Honda Qualifying Sweep in Texas
• Charlie Kimball scores career-first IndyCar Series pole
• Sets INDYCAR qualifying record for Texas Motor Speedway
• Honda drivers sweep top eight starting positions for Saturday night race
FORT WORTH, Texas (June 9, 2017) – Charlie Kimball drove to the first pole position in his Verizon IndyCar Series career Friday at the Texas Motor Speedway, leading a Honda sweep of the top eight starting positions in qualifying for Saturday night’s Rainguard Water Sealers 600.
Kimball set one- and two-lap INDYCAR qualifying records at the 1.5-mile oval to secure the pole over his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate and championship points leader, Scott Dixon, who will start second. Kimball’s two-lap average of 222.556 mph shattered the previous record of 219.182 mph, set by Will Power in 2013.
Alexander Rossi will start his Andretti Autosport Honda from the inside of the second row, third, followed by Tony Kanaan in a third Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. Substituting for the injured Sebastien Bourdais, Tristian Vautier will start fifth for Dale Coyne Racing, followed by Max Chilton as the Ganassi team qualified all four cars in the top six.
Mikhail Aleshin made it four Honda teams in the top eight, and will start seventh, with Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato rounding out the top eight in his Andretti Autosport Honda.
Saturday night’s 248-lap race, the first Saturday night race of the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series, starts at 8 p.m. EDT, with live coverage on the NBC Sports Network.
Charlie Kimball (Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) Pole qualifier, career first Indy car pole, fourth Honda pole of 2017: “I’m really excited to be on pole. The guys [on the team] totally deserve it. Everyone at Chip Ganassi Racing has been working so hard and the boys have had my back all year long; through the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s so nice to be able to repay them with a pole position here at Texas Motor Speedway. The Tresiba Honda was really good right out of the box, and Todd [Malloy, engineer] made a few adjustments that made it better during the course of practice. During qualifying, we just took a swing at it, went out and got the job done.”
Alexander Rossi (Andretti Autosport Honda) Qualified 3rd, equals his best previous qualifying run of 2017, third at Indianapolis: “The ShopAndretti Honda was good from when we rolled off [the transporter] today. I knew when we got in the qualifying line that we didn’t have anything for pole, [when I saw] how much the Ganassi cars were trimmed. But, third is good, as we saw last year, a lot can happen at this race and I feel really good in the race car as well – confidence is high at the moment.”