By Tony Solorzano<\/p>\n
(Long Beach) \u2013 \u00a0Hitachi Team Penske driver Ryan Briscoe claimed the pole for Sunday\u2019s 38th running of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, but thanks to the penalty issued to 11 drivers who had their engines changed out, Target Chip Ganassi Racing\u2019s Dario Franchitti moved up to the top spot.<\/p>\n
Franchitti, who finished fourth in qualifying, is powered by a Honda engine and benefitted from the penalty that was imposed on Briscoe, the pole winner, his Team Penske teammate Will Power and Andretti Autosports\u2019 Ryan Hunter-Reay, who all finished ahead of Franchitti in qualifying.<\/p>\n
Franchitti will be joined on the front row by Sarah Fisher-Hartman Racing\u2019s Josef Newgarden, who finished seventh in qualifying, just missing the final round of qualifying by two-tenths of a second. Fellow rookie driver Simon Pagenaud also benefitted from the penalties incurred to the Chevrolet drivers, moving up to fourth position, joining Justin Wilson on the second row.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we got to the Firestone Fast Six, we knew where we would be starting regardless of what time we did, but we kind of wanted to earn it,\u201d said Franchitti about his fourth place finish in the final round of qualifying. \u201cWe didn\u2019t quite have it in the car, so we\u2019ll go back tomorrow and we\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Briscoe earned his first pole of the season, his first at Long Beach and his 12th pole overall, with his last pole coming in 2010 when the series raced at the Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois. Briscoe\u2019s racing team, Team Penske, claimed their fourth consecutive pole at Long Beach, however, Power\u2019s streak of consecutive pole positions ended at three, dating back to last year\u2019s season finale in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
The Grand Prix will begin Sunday at 12:15 and will be televised on the NBC Sports Network.<\/p>\n
UNOFFICIAL STARTING ORDER (courtesy Curt Cavin, Indianapolis Star)<\/p>\n
1. Dario Franchitti, Ganassi Racing, Honda, 1:09.0327<\/p>\n
2. Josef Newgarden, Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing, Honda, 1:09.0697<\/p>\n
3. Justin Wilson, Dale Coyne Racing, Honda, 1:09.0910<\/p>\n
4. Simon Pagenaud, Schmidt Hamilton Racing, Honda, 1:09.2078<\/p>\n
5. Scott Dixon, Ganassi Racing, Honda, 1:09.3658<\/p>\n
6. Takuma Sato, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Honda, 1:09.9000<\/p>\n
7. Mike Conway, A.J. Foyt Racing, Honda, 1:09.8868<\/p>\n
8. Graham Rahal, Ganassi Racing, Honda, 1:09.9796<\/p>\n
9. Charlie Kimball, Ganassi Racing, Honda, 1:10.0188<\/p>\n
10. Alex Tagliani, Bryan Herta Autosport, Lotus, 1:10.8168<\/p>\n
11. x-Ryan Briscoe, Team Penske, Chevrolet, 1:08.6089<\/p>\n
12. x-Will Power, Team Penske, Chevrolet, 1:08.7073<\/p>\n
13. x-Ryan Hunter-Reay, Andretti Autosport, Chevrolet, 1:08.7163<\/p>\n
14. James Jakes, Dale Coyne Racing, Honda, 1:10.7579<\/p>\n
15. x-E.J. Viso, KV Racing Technology, Chevrolet, 1:09.0634<\/p>\n
16. x-James Hinchcliffe, Andretti Autosport, Chevrolet, 1:09.2109<\/p>\n
17. Simona De Silvestro, HVM Racing, Lotus, 1:12.0590<\/p>\n
18. x-Helio Castroneves, Team Penske, Chevrolet, 1:09.0846<\/p>\n
19. x-Tony Kanaan, KV Racing Technology, Chevrolet, 1:09.1987<\/p>\n
20. x-JR Hildebrand, Panther Racing, Chevrolet, 1:10.3794<\/p>\n
21. x-Marco Andretti, Andretti Autosport, Chevrolet, 1:10.5939<\/p>\n
22. x-Rubens Barrichello, KV Racing Technology, Chevrolet, 1:10.0651<\/p>\n
23. x-Oriol Servia, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, Lotus, 1:10.7579<\/p>\n
24. x-Ed Carpenter, Ed Carpenter Racing, Chevrolet, 1:11.4519<\/p>\n
25. x-Sebastien Bourdais, Dragon Racing, Lotus, 1:10.8154<\/p>\n
26. x-Katherine Legge, Dragon Racing, Lotus, 1:12.1142<\/p>\n
x-Team made unapproved engine change, docked 10 starting positions<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Tony Solorzano (Long Beach) \u2013 \u00a0Hitachi Team Penske driver Ryan Briscoe claimed the pole for Sunday\u2019s 38th running of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, but thanks to the penalty issued to 11 drivers who had their engines changed out, Target Chip Ganassi Racing\u2019s Dario Franchitti moved up to the top spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5163,5170,7346,5167,5164,7344,7340,7345,7342,7336,5174,5158,5162,5161,7343,7347,7341,5166],"class_list":["post-23446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10s","tag-dario-franchitti","tag-e-j-viso","tag-ed-carpenter","tag-graham-rahal","tag-helio-castroneves","tag-james-jakes","tag-josef-newgarden","tag-jr-hildebrand","tag-justin-wilson","tag-long-beach-grand-prix","tag-marco-andretti","tag-mike-conway","tag-ryan-briscoe","tag-ryan-hunter-reay","tag-scott-dixon","tag-sebastien-bourdais","tag-simon-pagenaud","tag-will-power"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23446"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23449,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23446\/revisions\/23449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}