Conor Daly was the pole for Sunday's Firestone Indy Lights race in Baltimore after officials determined several cars set their fastest laps while a local yellow was displayed on course. Firestone Indy Lights rules prohibit drivers from setting their fastest laps once a local yellow has been displayed.
"Under a local yellow in the Firestone Indy Lights race, you can't improve your lap time. Any car that drives through the local yellow area will have their lap deleted," explained race director Tony Cotman. "After the qualifying session when I was going through and looking at the data prior to putting out the official results, I noticed that we had inadvertently deleted the laps from all cars from the lap before we meant to delete them. Instead of deleting the lap of the local yellow, we deleted the lap before it, so we basically deleted the wrong lap.
"When I looked at that it reflected the results, but I couldn't get to that until after the IZOD IndyCar Series qualifying and the Star Mazda qualifying and this is why it took a couple of hours to review. You may remember that Stefan Wilson is the last one that comes to mind because earlier this season he thought he was on the pole somewhere and the same rule applied then and it applies every weekend. I feel really bad about the people it affected negatively, particularly Gustavo Yacaman (who recorded the quickest lap of the 45-minute session and was originally credited with pole [ABOVE]), but I feel really good knowing that we applied the rule as written and are trying to be consistent from week to week and we will move on."
Daly was delighted to pick up his first series pole. "It means a lot. I've wanted a pole for so long," he said. "Esteban (Guerrieri) always seemed to get us this year. I was able to put in a good lap and at the right time. I'm just really happy that the officials made the right decision as well. I'm just ready for the race now. I know we have a fast car and I love street circuits."
Peter Dempsey, driving the No. 26 Andretti Autosport car, will make his second front-row start of the season (Long Beach the other). Yacaman, driving the No. 2 TMR-Tuvacol-Xtreme Coil Drilling car, will start third next to Guerrieri.
Anders Krohn in the No. 9 Liberty Engineering Special for Belardi Autosport will be joined on row 3 by Stefan Wilson in the No. 5 Andretti Autosport car. Victor Carbone, driving the No. 3 Nevoni/Sam Schmidt Motorsports car, and Tonis Kasemets, who's making his first start in the series since July 2010 in the No. 22 TMR-Xtreme Coil Drilling entry, will occupy row 4.
Early in the session, drivers had difficulty keeping their cars pointed forward on the rain-slicked 2-mile temporary street circuit. That was detrimental to series points leader Josef Newgarden, whose fastest lap was wiped out because he caused a full-course caution. As moisture moved on and the newly-paved course dried, times came down as the competition rose.
Newgarden will start a season-low 14th in the No. 11 Copart/Score Big/Robo-Pong/Sam Schmidt Motorsports car, ending his streak of top-five starts at nine.