Helio Castroneves loves the streets of Long Beach and the street circuit seems to love him back.
Castroneves earned his third straight Long Beach pole in record fashion. A blistering 1m06.2254s time during Q3 on Saturday around the 1.9-mile street circuit was more than enough to smash the Team Penske drivers’ 2015 lap record.
Castroneves pole was the sole bright spot for Chevrolet, on a day dominated by Honda. The Brazilian will lead the field for Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach with six consecutive Hondas in his rear mirrors. Penske team-mates Josef Newgarden and Will Power, are the only other Chevrolets in the top-10, they start P8 and P9 respectively.
Castroneves and Penske team-mate Simon Pagenaud, were involved in an incident at T11 in Q1, that caused the Frenchman to start last after a steward’s inquiry. The stewards ruled the reigning IndyCar champion interfered with Castroneves who was on a flying lap that resulted in the Brazilian having to ease up and swerve to avoid contact.
The resulting penalty for Pagenaud relegated him to the back of the grid and an elimination of his two fastest Q1 lap times, removing him qualifying.
Pagenaud rued the penalty which he attributed to Will Power backing him up, causing traffic behind (Castroneves) to slow to react. The Frenchman thought pole contention was very likely given early qualifying pace.
“It’s a real shame; the car was phenomenal,” Pagenaud said, “We had the car for pole, and Will [Power] started backing everybody up. I don’t understand why the guy that’s behind [faces] the consequence for the problem. But it is what it is.
“In my head, there was no doubt we were going to contend for the pole position. We’ll have a good race car, and with some strategy we can do something good tomorrow.”
