It’s official. For the second consecutive year, Ed Carpenter will be on the pole for the Indy 500. Carpenter joins a small club of just ten other Indy 500 drivers by accomplishing this feat at the World’s Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
Today was full of qualifying surprises. The most surprising being that the average speeds for all of the drivers in the top 9, except for Ed Carpenter, were slower than Juan Pablo Montoya, who was the fastest from the 11-33 positioned field of drivers.
It’s also surprising that James Hinchcliffe was able to pull off a P2 standing, considering he stated that he doesn’t remember the crash during the Grand Prix of Indianapolis last weekend in which he suffered a concussion. Hinchcliffe was cleared on Thursday to participate in next weekend’s race. He gave a lot of credit to his team and former teammate EJ Viso for getting his car ready for this weekend.
As to the new qualifying set-up there are still mixed emotions. Juan Pablo Montoya said that as a fan, and someone working at the track, it was fun. Ed Carpenter said that he would like to see it all come down to a one day event. It went smoothly though, and made for a pretty exciting couple of days.
A new record was set on the course today, setting a new fastest field average of the Indianapolis 500.
Here is the lineup for the 98th Running of the Indianapolis 500:
| ROW 1 | Carpenter | Hinchcliffe | Power |
| ROW 2 | Castroneves (W) | Pagenaud | Andretti |
| ROW 3 | Muñoz | Newgarden | Hildebrand |
| ROW 4 | Montoya (W) | Dixon (W) | Busch (R) |
| ROW 5 | Hawksworth (R) | Wilson | Aleshin (R) |
| ROW 6 | Kanaan (W) | Bourdais | Servia |
| ROW 7 | Hunter-Reay | Rahal | Huertas (R) |
| ROW 8 | Mann | Sato | Tagliani |
| ROW 9 | Bell | Kimball | Villenuve (W) |
| ROW 10 | Davison (R) | Plowman (R) | Briscoe |
| ROW 11 | Karam (R) | Saavedra | Lazier (W) |
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(W)=Previous Indy 500 Winner (R)=Indy 500 Rookie |
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