LEXINGTON — Navigating Mid-Ohio can be treacherous in optimal conditions.
Mother Nature made it even more difficult for the drivers of the Verizon IndyCar Series.
Qualifying for Sunday’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio was thrown into disarray Saturday afternoon as storms rumbled through the area shortly before the scheduled 70-minute qualifying session. When the rain finally relented and the skies brightened, Sebastien Bourdais was the winner of the Firestone Fast Six and will be on the pole for today’s 95-lap feature event.
“The trickiest part it to know how hard you can push it in braking,” said Bourdais, who earned his second pole of the season and the 33rd of his career. “You know you have to produce lap time real quick, but you can’t overshoot it.”
The 35-year-old Frenchman didn’t secure the top spot until his final qualifying lap. Josef Newgarden was poised to win the pole before Bourdais turned a lap of 1 minute, 24.1610 seconds.
“I think, honestly, the rain helped a little bit to spread everyone out,” Newgarden said. “I was kind of happy that it rained because it just spread everyone out. I thought we had a good car.
“We were just trying to make the most out of each lap.”
The three-segment qualifying process begins with the drivers divided into two groups of 11. Each group has 10 minutes on the course and the top six cars in each group advance. The same procedure is followed in the second segment with the top six cars advancing to the Firestone Fast Six.
There were upsets immediately as series points leader Helio Castroneves and three-time Mid-Ohio winner Scott Dixon didn’t advance out of the first round of qualifying.
“It was a handful out there,” said Ryan Hunter-Reay, last year’s pole sitter who will start fifth Sunday. “But it was the same for everybody.
“The changing conditions in the Fast Six made it tough because you could go somewhere to experiment, but if it’s the wrong experiment it could cost you your qualifying run.”
Hunter-Reay is third in the points standings behind Will Power. Power will start sixth.
“(Winning the pole) is a big deal here because it is so difficult to pass,” Power said. “I was really happy to make it to the Fast Six. It was the toughest possible conditions at this track. It’s just so slippery.”
As the course dried and the field was narrowed, some teams flirted with the idea of putting on their racing slicks. Ultimately, all six teams in the Fast Six decided to stick with their rain tires.
“It was extremely slippery out there but toward the end it started to get dry,” said Tony Kanaan, who will start third. “I was tempted to go to slicks, but I think that was going to be too brave so I picked not to.
“The first part of the track was actually fairly dry. I was behind Carlos (Munoz) and Ryan (Hunter-Reay) at the time and I said, ‘Maybe I’ll come in for slicks,’ and as soon as I thought about that I went to brake into Turn 12 and I almost lost it.”
It all should add up to an exciting afternoon of racing Sunday. Each of the past two races at Mid-Ohio have been run without a single caution flag flying.
“It’s typical Indy car,” said Power, who trails Castroneves by 13 points with four races remaining. “It’s all mixed up and you never know who’s going to be on the pole from one week to the next. It’s just great racing.”
Follow Curt Conrad on Twitter @curtjconrad.
