» IndyCars: Power romps to pole at Sonoma

IndyCar Series points leader Will Power has cemented his dominance of this weekend’s Grand Prix of Sonoma by leading an all-Australian, all-Penske front row for Sunday’s race around the twisty Californian circuit.

Power – who has been winless since the season’s fourth round at Sao Paulo – claimed pole position with a fastest ‘Fast Six’ qualifying lap of 1:17.2709, edging out team-mate and compatriot Ryan Briscoe by less than two-tenths of a second to claim top spot and a vital bonus championship point.

In what a dominant qualifying performance for the Team Penske outfit, all three cars made it into the final ‘Fast Six’ shootout for pole, with Hélio Castroneves qualifying fourth-fastest, ahead of the two Chip Ganassi entries of Scott Dixon (the winner last time out at Mid-Ohio) and reigning champion Dario Franchitti.

One of the sensations of qualifying was Sébastien Bourdais, who shrugged off a troubled last fortnight for the Dragon Racing outfit to finish a season’s best third-fastest.

Power’s closest championship rival, Ryan Hunter-Reay, harboured fears that the Penske outfit would prove unbeatable this weekend. His predictions rang true, with the American failing to make the ‘Fast Six’ qualifying cut. He will start from seventh place, the fastest of the Andretti Autosport team’s five drivers entered this weekend.

The team’s other championship challenger, James Hinchcliffe, could only manage the eleventh-quickest time as he too was bundled out in the second phase of qualifying. He will tart from eleventh place, two spots ahead of the team’s reserve driver Sebastián Saavedra, who was given his second outing of the season in an entry co-run by the AFS operation.

2012 IndyCar Series GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma Final Qualifying Results:

	Driver	Entrant	Result
1.	Will Power	Team Penske	1:17.2709	‘Fast Six’
2.	Ryan Briscoe	Team Penske	1:17.4347	‘Fast Six’
3.	Sébastien Bourdais	Dragon Racing	1:17.7497	‘Fast Six’
4.	Hélio Castroneves	Team Penske	1:18.1090	‘Fast Six’
5.	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1:18.2126	‘Fast Six’
6.	Dario Franchitti	Chip Ganassi Racing	1:18.3462	‘Fast Six’
7.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	1:18.3355	‘Round 2’
8.	Alex Tagliani	Bryan Herta Autosports	1:18.4168	‘Round 2’
9.	Simon Pagenaud	Schmidt Hamilton	1:18.4334	‘Round 2’
10.	Justin Wilson	Dale Coyne Racing	1:18.6258	‘Round 2’
11.	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	1:18.7885	‘Round 2’
12.	Rubens Barrichello	KV Racing Technology	1:18.9788	‘Round 2’
13.	Sebastián Saavedra	AFS / Andretti Autosport	1:18.8918	‘Group 1’
14.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	1:18.8925	‘Group 2’
15.	Graham Rahal	Chip Ganassi Racing	1:18.8981	‘Group 1’
16.	Mike Conway	AJ Foyt Enterprises	1:18.9048	‘Group 2’
17.	JR Hildebrand	Panther Racing	1:19.0931	‘Group 1’
18.	Tony Kanaan	KV Racing Technology	1:18.9475	‘Group 2’
19.	EJ Viso	KV Racing Technology	1:19.3953	‘Group 1’
20.	Oriol Servià	Panther / Dreyer & Reinbold	1:18.9672	‘Group 2’
21.	Katherine Legge	Dragon Racing	1:19.6414	‘Group 1’
22.	Charlie Kimball	Chip Ganassi Racing	1:19.0262	‘Group 2’
23.	Josef Newgarden	Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing	1:19.7468	‘Group 1’
24.	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	1:19.2821	‘Group 2’
25.	Simona de Silvestro	Lotus-HVM Racing	1:20.2295	‘Group 1’
26.	James Jakes	Dale Coyne Racing	1:19.5152	‘Group 2’
27.	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	1:19.6837	‘Group 2’