Castroneves Gets Pole Award, Will Start 11th

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NEWTON, Iowa – Helio Castroneves knows that every point counts in the IZOD IndyCar Series point standings, so the Brazilian happily accepted the nine bonus points for winning the Verizon P1 Award in a 50-lap heat race for the Iowa Corn Indy 250 presented by DEKALB even though he’ll start 11th by accepting a grid spot penalty for an unapproved engine change (did not meet 2,000-mile threshold).

Castroneves is not the only one moving back on the grid because of unapproved engine change penalties: Scott Dixon, who won Race 1 and finished fifth in Race 3; Takuma Sato, who was second in Race 1; James Jakes, Ana Beatriz and Josef Newgarden.

Castroneves, driving the No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske car, led teammate Will Power across the finish line by 3.1480 seconds for his first pole since April 2012 and 38th overall. James Hinchcliffe finished third and Andretti Autosport teammate Marco Andretti, who started from the pole at Milwaukee last week, finished fourth.

Those drivers, plus Ed Carpenter, will move up to comprise the first two rows.

The three 50-lap heat races on the .875-mile oval set the lineup for the

250-lap race. Race 3 consisted of positions 1 through 6 from single-car qualifying plus the first- and second-place finishers from Races 1 (Dixon and Sato) and 2 (Graham Rahal and Carpenter) to determine the pole winner and the first five rows of the starting grid.

The results of Race 2 determined the odd-numbered positions on the grid, starting with position 11 (Simon Pagenaud, who picked up one bonus point). The results of Race 1 determined the even-numbered positions on the grid, starting with position 12 (Alex Tagliani, who also received one bonus point).

Bonus points — from nine awarded to the pole winner and decreasing by one to three points for seventh/eighth, two points for ninth/10th and one point for 11th/12th — were an added attraction for the only oval race using heat races for qualifying.

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