Will Power on Pole at St Petersburg

If you were to count the number of things that are different with the IndyCar Series this year, you would need six hands and five feet. While most everything is new to the sport in 2012, a familiar face will start on pole for tomorrow’s season-opening race at St. Petersburg.

Will Power put down a track record on his way to winning the pole for the Honda Grand Prix. Power had a blazing lap of 61.3721 seconds to earn the top qualifying spot at this track for the third consecutive year. He won in 2010 and finished second to Dario Franchitti last year.

It should come as no surprise that Ryan Briscoe will be starting on the outside of row one. Power’s teammate had been one of the fastest drivers in each of the practice sessions. Another pair of teammates will be starting behind them in row two. Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe give Andretti Autosport a very good chance at winning this race on Sunday.

Row Three features Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud. Unfortunately for Pagenaud, he is going to be penalized ten starting positions because of an unauthorized engine change his team made on Friday. Because of this, Scott Dixon will get his sixth starting position. It was a tough day for the Ganassi crew, as none of his four drivers made the Fast Six during qualifying.

Marco Andretti qualified eighth as Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti rounded out the top ten.

The Honda Indy Grand Prix of St. Petersburg will run tomorrow at 12:30 on ABC.

Here are the qualifying results from Saturday.