DETROIT — Graham Rahal broke an eight-year qualifying drought in style Saturday morning, setting the track record at the Raceway at Belle Isle Park and scoring the Verizon P1 Award for the first race of the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear.
Rahal, driving the No. 15 SoldierStrong/TurnsforTroops.com Honda, scorched around the 14-turn, 2.35-mile temporary street courset in 1 minute, 13.9681 seconds (114.374 mph).
That lap bettered the record of 1:14.0379, set last year by Simon Pagenaud.
It is the third pole position in Rahal’s 11-year Indy car career, but first since he was the top qualifier at Kansas Speedway in April 2009.
Saturday also marks the first Verizon IndyCar Series pole position for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing since Scott Sharp took top honors at Texas Motor Speedway 10 years ago.
“It’s a little uncharted territory for me the last handful of years,” Rahal said. “We’re used to having to charge from the back. This is a pretty welcome sight.”
Qualifying consisted of two groups receiving 12 minutes of track time each, instead of the typical three rounds of knockout qualifying seen at Verizon IndyCar Series street and road-course events.
Rahal established the standard in Group 1.
Helio Castroneves clocked a lap of 1:13.8901 (114.494 mph) in the second group that would have won the pole, but was penalized by INDYCAR for not reducing his speed in the area of a local yellow and had his fast lap negated.
Mikhail Aleshin (No. 7 SMP Racing Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda) brought out the local caution in the Turn 7 area of the 14-turn, 2.35-mile temporary street course, and per Rule 7.1.3.2 of the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series Rule Book, other drivers must decrease their speed by at least 15 percent when traveling through a local yellow area.
Castroneves’ next-best lap in the No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet of 1:14.0414 was still good enough to be fastest in his group, so he will start outside Rahal on Row 1 in this afternoon’s race.
Rahal and Castroneves each earned a championship point for being fastest in their groups.
The odd-numbered starting positions for race one will be filled by the other cars in Rahal’s group, based on their qualifying times. The even-numbered positions in the 22-car field will be filled by those in Castroneves’ group, also based on qualifying times.
Full qualifying results can be viewed on the next page…
