2016 Honda Indy 200 Qualifying Results: Penske 1-2

Verizon IndyCar Series fans were likely not surprised by qualifying for the Honda Indy 200, as Team Penske’s Simon Pagenaud and Will Power dueled for P1.

Saturday’s qualifying session for the 2016 Honda Indy 200 went exactly as the last four weeks of the season have gone.

Team Penske’s Simon Pagenaud, the current championship leader, notched his sixth Verizon P1 Award of the 2016 season. Pagenaud’s lap time of 1:03.870 was a new track record at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course – the sixth time a new record has been set at an IndyCar venue this year.

More from IndyCar

But Pagenaud just barely edged his teammate Will Power, arguably the hottest driver in IndyCar at the moment. Power’s lap time was 1:03.938, as he aims for his fourth race victory in the last five attempts.

“It was just like mayhem,” Power said through a league statement after qualifying. “Not knowing what tires to use, and everyone went out on reds so we went out and did one lap on blacks and came straight in for reds.

“It was just a mixed-up session, and it was tiring as hell because you had to run every single lap like the Firestone Fast Six,” he continued. “I took a lap to take a breather. It was crazy. Good to start the Verizon Chevrolet on the front row.

“[It’s] going to be a pretty long day [Sunday],” he added. “90 laps around this joint is tough. I’ll see what I can do.”

Far more disappointed was fellow championship contender Scott Dixon, who is a four-time winner in the Honda Indy 200 and thus was expected to show strong on Saturday.

Dixon pulled the No. 9 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet into the pits part-way through the second round of qualifying as the team made a questionable strategy call, meaning that he could do nothing but fall down the board while other drivers recorded their fastest laps.

He will now start 11th in the 2016 Honda Indy 200.

“We waved off our last run and we thought we were going to be safe where we were in the Target car,” Dixon explained. “Obviously there at the end I said the track was getting faster on the radio and they didn’t hear me, so it was just a bit of miscommunication unfortunately.

“The times just picked up from there, when it continued to dry out and that was it,” he continued. “The car has been fast all weekend so it’s disappointing not to get through, but we have a fast race car for tomorrow, that’s for sure.”

Three of the top five IndyCar championship contenders – Pagenaud, Power and Josef Newgarden – are also in the top three for the start of the Honda Indy 200.

The other two, Helio Castroneves and Dixon, will begin Sunday’s race seventh and 11th respectively. Defending race winner Graham Rahal will start sixth.

Below are the complete qualifying results for the 2016 Honda Indy 200:

1. (22) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 01:03.8700 (127.271)
2. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 01:03.9381 (127.135)
3. (21) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 01:04.1200 (126.775)
4. (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 01:04.3265 (126.368)
5. (83) Charlie Kimball, Chevrolet, 01:04.3644 (126.293)
6. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 01:04.4697 (126.087)
7. (3) Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 01:04.4300 (126.165)
8. (2) Juan Pablo Montoya, Chevrolet, 01:04.5141 (126.000)
9. (5) James Hinchcliffe, Honda, 01:04.5796 (125.873)
10. (7) Mikhail Aleshin, Honda, 01:04.6084 (125.816)
11. (9) Scott Dixon, Chevrolet, 01:04.6554 (125.725)
12. (98) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 01:04.8082 (125.429)
13. (8) Max Chilton, Chevrolet, 01:04.7752 (125.492)
14. (10) Tony Kanaan, Chevrolet, 01:04.5885 (125.855)
15. (26) Carlos Munoz, Honda, 01:04.8621 (125.324)
16. (11) Sebastien Bourdais, Chevrolet, 01:04.5967 (125.839)
17. (41) Jack Hawksworth, Honda, 01:05.0196 (125.021)
18. (19) RC Enerson, Honda, 01:04.6576 (125.721)
19. (20) Spencer Pigot, Chevrolet, 01:05.1891 (124.696)
20. (14) Takuma Sato, Honda, 01:04.8354 (125.376)
21. (27) Marco Andretti, Honda, 01:05.1997 (124.675)
22. (18) Conor Daly, Honda, 01:05.1098 (124.848)

The 2016 Honda Indy 200 takes place Sunday, Jul. 31 at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT from the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, OH. The race will be televised on CNBC.