INDIANAPOLIS - – Tony Kanaan led the ABC Supply team in qualifying today on the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in his No. 14 Chevrolet Dallara.
Kanaan will start 12th while his young teammate Matheus “Matt” Leist will start 21st.
Kanaan advanced out of the first round by placing fourth out of 12 drivers. However, the second round didn’t go quite as well as he expected but he was still smiling afterwards.
"Today was a big improvement from our performance at Barber,” Kanaan noted. “They are quite similar race tracks so I'm quite pleased with the performance of our car today. On the last qualifying run, we tried something different. I made a little mistake that cost us two-tenths of a second. I didn't match my lap time from Q1 (qualifying round 1). You cannot afford to lose two-tenths in this series. We have a good car and I believe that we can fight to the front tomorrow."
Leist never seemed to get comfortable in his car today but it wasn’t from lack of trying on his part or that of the team.
"Qualifying was a bit difficult,” Leist said. “We're still struggling with the setup of the car. I am looking forward to tomorrow's race. It's a long race, and I am hoping I can move forward from where I am starting. Hopefully, the entire team has a great result tomorrow.
“When we have black tires, the car feels loose. If we can figure out this issue, we should be in a good place for the race tomorrow."
Will Power won the pole, his third at the INDYCAR Grand Prix and 51st of his career with a time of one minute, 9.8182 seconds (125.761 mph). Robert Wickens was second followed Sebastien Bourdais and Wickens’ teammate James Hinchcliffe. Rounding out the Firestone Fast Six were Jordan King and Josef Newgarden.
The race will be broadcast live tomorrow by ABC-TV starting at 3:30 p.m. ET.