Power flies to fourth pole of year at Sonoma

Will Power romped to his fourth pole of the season, second in a row this year and third in a row at Sonoma with a 1:17.2709 around the newly remeasured and slightly reconfigured 2.385-mile Sonoma road course. Power's won the last two Sonoma races in authoritative fashion and a three-peat tomorrow would stretch his championship lead from five points into double digits.

The Firestone Fast 6 qualifiers comprised the top six finishers of a year ago, albeit not in the same order in which they finished. Ryan Briscoe, fastest of everyone else all weekend other than Power, locked out the front row for Team Penske.

“He was quick, but I was better,” Power joked in the post-qualifying press conference. “I'd actually expect a lot of action tomorrow – hopefully not involving me.”

Briscoe rued losing what would have been his third pole of the season; alas, it marked his fifth Firestone Fast 6 appearance of the year and third consecutive.

“You have to adjust for the wind here, that makes the biggest difference,” he said. “It was a solid run. I didn't get enough out of the first lap in Q3.”

Sebastien Bourdais records his best start of the season in third, bettering his fourth in Toronto, in one of the two TrueCar/McAfee Dragon Racing Chevrolets. Helio Castroneves in fourth makes it four Chevys in the top four positions, ahead of the two Target Chip Ganassi Racing entries from Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti.

“We have a much better idea of what we need on our car now compared to the start of the year,” Bourdais said.

Power led a Penske podium sweep a year ago ahead of Castroneves and Briscoe and as the Australian remains in pursuit of his first series title, he'll be relying on his teammates to help support the cause – even as Castroneves is still within range at 26 points back of Power in third place.

“The only (team) order for us is that we don't crash,” Briscoe said.

Bourdais in third was, like a year ago in the race, the only driver outside the Penske and Target Ganassi stables in the top six.

Ryan Hunter-Reay was the only one of the four main title contenders to miss the fast six, but a seventh represented a marked improvement from 19th a year ago. He led the quartet of Andretti Autosport entries and was the only one of them in the top 10.

Alex Tagliani missed the Firestone Fast 6 for the first time since his Barracuda Racing squad switched to Hondas in May, in eighth, with Simon Pagenaud and Justin Wilson completing the top 10 qualifiers.

Wilson is one of four who will take a 10-spot grid penalty for an unapproved engine change and falls to 20th; Sebastian Saavedra just missed advancing out of Q1 and is the highest of the other three (13th to 23rd) with Takuma Sato and Simona de Silvestro also set to drop to the back of the field.

Qualifying struggles continued for the Panther and DRR squads (JR Hildebrand 15th, Oriol Servia 18th, each in alternate liveries this weekend), the KV Racing Technology trio with only Rubens Barrichello (11th) advancing out of Q1, and neither driver from the second Ganassi squad made it out of Q1 either (Graham Rahal 13th, Charlie Kimball 22nd).

The GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma goes green at 4:40 p.m. Eastern Sunday on NBC Sports Network.

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                   Time        Gap
 1.  Will Power           Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m17.2709s
 2.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m17.4347s  + 0.1638s
 3.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dragon Dallara-Chevy       1m17.7497s  + 0.4788s
 4.  Helio Castroneves    Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m18.1090s  + 0.8381s
 5.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m18.2126s  + 0.9417s
 6.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m18.3462s  + 1.0753s
 7.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m18.3355s  Round 2
 8.  Alex Tagliani        Herta Dallara-Honda        1m18.4168s  Round 2
 9.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt Dallara-Honda      1m18.4334s  Round 2
10.  Justin Wilson        Coyne Dallara-Honda        1m18.6258s  Round 2
11.  James Hinchcliffe    Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m18.7885s  Round 2
12.  Rubens Barrichello   KV Dallara-Chevy           1m18.9788s  Round 2
13.  Sebastian Saavedra   AFS/Andretti Dallara-Chevy 1m18.8918s  Group 1
14.  Marco Andretti       Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m18.8925s  Group 2
15.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m18.8981s  Group 1
16.  Mike Conway          Foyt Dallara-Honda         1m18.9048s  Group 2
17.  JR Hildebrand        Panther Dallara-Chevy      1m19.0931s  Group 1
18.  Tony Kanaan          KV Dallara-Chevy           1m18.9475s  Group 2
19.  EJ Viso              KV Dallara-Chevy           1m19.3953s  Group 1
20.  Oriol Servia         Panther/DRR Dallara-Chevy  1m18.9672s  Group 2
21.  Katherine Legge      Dragon Dallara-Chevy       1m19.6414s  Group 1
22.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m19.0262s  Group 2
23.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher Dallara-Honda       1m19.7468s  Group 1
24.  Takuma Sato          Rahal Dallara-Honda        1m19.2821s  Group 2
25.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM Dallara-Lotus          1m20.2295s  Group 1
26.  James Jakes          Coyne Dallara-Honda        1m19.5152s  Group 2
27.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter Dallara-Chevy    1m19.6837s  Group 2