Will Power takes St Petersburg pole

Will Power has opened his 2011 IZOD IndyCar season in style, scoring pole for the opening race of the season at the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Power, driving the #12 Verizon Team Penske car, posted a time of 1m 01.9624s to score his 11th IZOD IndyCar Series pole. He set a series record last season with eight.

The Australian was pleased to get his season off to a solid start.

“It’s very good for the guys,” Power said.

“The Verizon Team Penske guys are starting with the pole again and you know where the race it going to be tomorrow. It’s going to be double-file restarts and a lot of mayhem.”

Four teams are represented on the first three rows for the 100-lap race on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn circuit.

Reigning series champion Dario Franchitti, who hasn’t won at St Pete in the seven years of the event, will start second in the #10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing car (1:02.2953), while team-mate Scott Dixon took third place ahead of Andretti Autosport’s Mike Conway in the #27 Team GoDaddy car.

Ryan Briscoe, who won the race in 2009, and Justin Wilson will start the race on the third row of the grid.

In Firestone Indy Lights, Esteban Guerrieri became the eighth driver to earn the Sunoco Pole Award in their debut race.

Pos	Car	Driver	Car Name	Entrant	Time	Speed
1	12	Will Power	Verizon Team Penske	Team Penske	1:01.9625	104.579
2	10	Dario Franchitti	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	1:02.2953	104.021
3	9	Scott Dixon	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	1:02.3975	103.850
4	27	Mike Conway	Team GoDaddy.com	Andretti Autosport	1:02.5306	103.629
5	6	Ryan Briscoe	IZOD Team Penske	Team Penske	1:02.5744	103.557
6	22	Justin Wilson	TransSystems/DRR	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	1:02.7729	103.229
7	26	Marco Andretti	Team Venom Energy	Andretti Autosport	1:02.6312	103.463
8	82	Tony Kanaan	GEICO-KV Racing Technology-Lotus	KV Racing Technology – Lotus	1:02.7818	103.215
9	3	Helio Castroneves	guidepoint systems Team Penske	Team Penske	1:02.8204	103.151
10	77	Alex Tagliani	Bowers & Wilkins/Sam Schmidt Mtrsports	Sam Schmidt Motorsports	1:02.8225	103.148
11	5	Takuma Sato	KV Racing Technology – Lotus	KV Racing Technology – Lotus	1:02.9312	102.970
12	38	Graham Rahal	Service Central	Service Central Chip Ganassi Racing	1:03.0640	102.753
13	14	Vitor Meira	ABC Supply Co./A.J. Foyt Racing	A.J. Foyt Racng	1:03.1315	102.643
14	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda	Andretti Autosport	1:03.1778	102.568
15	02	Oriol Servia	Telemundo/Newman Haas Racing	Newman/Haas Racing	1:03.2434	102.461
16	17	Raphael Matos	Automatic Fire Sprinklers, Inc.	AFS Racing	1:03.2594	102.435
17	78	Simona De Silvestro	Nuclear Clean Air Energy/HVM Racing	Nuclear Clean Air Energy/HVM Racing	1:03.2724	102.414
18	19	Sebastien Bourdais	Boy Scouts of America	Dale Coyne Racing	1:03.3188	102.339
19	7	Danica Patrick	Team GoDaddy	Andretti Autosport	1:03.3764	102.246
20	24	Ana Beatriz (R)	Ipiranga/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	1:03.8036	101.562
21	59	E.J. Viso	PDVSA-KV Racing Technology-Lotus	KV Racing Technology – Lotus	1:03.4065	102.198
22	18	James Jakes (R)	Acorn Stairlifts	Dale Coyne Racing	1:03.8854	101.432
23	83	Charlie Kimball (R)	Levemir and NovoLog Flex Pen	Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing	1:03.5162	102.021
24	34	Sebastian Saavedra (R)	Conquest Racing	Conquest Racing	1:03.9696	101.298
25	4	JR Hildebrand (R)	National Guard Panther Racing	Panther Racing	1:03.8256	101.527