Power pips Newgarden for eighth St. Pete pole

Will Power stormed in the final seconds to claim his eighth career pole at the NTT IndyCar Series season opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Power’s Team Penske teammate Josef Newgarden set the mark with a 1 minute .5570 second lap and looked relatively secure as while Power made one final attempt at pole.

Aussie then popped out a fast lap of 1:00.4594s lap to take the pole.

Power was excited to claim the pole given the work that Team Penske has focused on throughout the offseason to step up their street course game.

“We were 10th in practice and have just slowly worked on the car and got it better and better and better, and even in qualifying we're making some kind of big changes,” he said. “By the time we got to the Fast Six, had a reasonable car, good car, obviously, and better on used tires. New tires it was okay and very good on blacks.

"I really didn't think I'd get pole. I knew Josef had really good tires, and he had a similar car to me. So yeah, we're just happy for the team. We were on the back foot starting this weekend.”

The pole is the Aussie’s 55th in total, which moves him into second on the all-time list behind Mario Andretti.

Newgarden settled for second but completed the fourth Team Penske sweep of the front row at St. Pete. Rookie sensation Felix Rosenqvist had a stellar qualifying session for his first IndyCar race.

The Swede was elevated to the fast six when rookie Colton Herta, who initially knocked Rosenqvist out in Q2, was penalized for blocking Charlie Kimball. He improved on that to log the third quickest time ahead of his IndyCar debut.

Dixon had a slightly more dramatic run to the Fast Six than his teammate. The driver on the No. 9 PNC Honda spun on his hot lap in his qualifying group and wasn’t good enough to advance. He became the beneficiary of good fortune when a penalized Takuma Sato for bringing out a local yellow and was bumped from the top six.

The five-time series champ wound up fourth while fifth place went to Ryan Hunter-Reay, who paced this morning’s practice session. His Andretti Autosport teammate Alexander Rossi will flank him on the outside of the third row.

Jack Harvey also had a good day for Meyer Shank Racing as he qualified seventh, the best qualifying result of his IndyCar career. Charlie Kimball will start eighth followed by former St. Petersburg winners James Hinchcliffe and Graham Rahal in ninth and tenth respectively.

Rookie Colton Herta was on pace to make the Firestone Fast Six but was penalized for impeding the lap of Charlie Kimball at the end of the top twelve and was docked his fastest two laps.

A surprise in the Top 12 was rookie Ben Hanley driving for Dragonspeed Racing. The Britton came out on the lucky end in Q1 as two red flags caught prevented many drivers from taking their hot laps, including Sebastien Bourdais, who has won the last two races at St. Petersburg.

Hanley will start his first IndyCar race from the 12th position.