Qualifying Saturday for the Baltimore Grand Prix Firestone Indy Lights Series event on the 2.04-mile Baltimore Street Circuit, with qualifying position, car number in parentheses, driver, time and speed in parentheses:
FIRESTONE INDY LIGHTS SUNOCO POLE QUALIFYING:
Firestone Indy Lights Sunoco Pole Qualifying is a 45-minute session open to all cars. The driver posting the fastest lap will win the $5,000 Sunoco Pole Award.
Any driver who causes a red flag during any segment will lose their fastest lap.
At 10:55 a.m., the ambient temperature was 72 degrees with a relative humidity of 61 percent and winds from the north-northeast at 3 mph. Skies were cloudy. The track temperature was 112 degrees, according to Firestone engineers.
Top lap, event: #77 Jack Hawksworth, 1:24.8128 (Saturday practice)
10:55 a.m. - GREEN. #26 Munoz is first on track.
11:01 a.m. - RED FLAG. #6 Serenelli is off course in Turn 5. He will lose his fastest lap for causing the red flag. Car is restarted by Holmatro Safety Team and returns to the pit lane under its own power.
11:06 a.m. - GREEN.
11:11 a.m. -- RED FLAG. #6 Serenelli is stopped on course in Turn 3. He will not be permitted to participate in the remainder of the session for causing a second red flag. All of his lap times have been disallowed.
11:15 a.m. - GREEN.
11:20 a.m. - Fastest lap with 20 minutes remaining is #26 Munoz at 1:25.0542.
11:25 a.m. - #77 Hawksworth sets fastest lap at 1:24.9617.
11:32 a.m. - RED FLAG. Contact between #8 Karam and #17 Kellett make contact in Turn 3. #8 Karam continues with front wing damage. #17 Kellett has a flat right rear tire and additional damage. #17 Kellett will lose his fastest lap for causing the red flag.
11:37 a.m. - GREEN.
***
Firestone Indy Lights officials have penalized #56 Di Leo his fastest lap for delaying the session. Di Leo left pit lane before the green flag was displayed.
***
11:40 a.m. - CHECKERED. #77 Hawksworth wins Sunoco Pole Award setting his fastest lap of 1:24.4190 on his final lap. #26 Munoz will start second.
FIRESTONE INDY LIGHTS QUALIFYING NOTES:
This is the second career Firestone Indy Lights pole for Jack Hawksworth. He also won the pole at Toronto. It is his sixth front row start this season.
Carlos Munoz qualified second, matching his career-best qualifying performance. He has been on the front row four times, most recently at Edmonton in 2012.
Carlos Munoz failed to qualify on the front row for only the second time this season. He qualified fourth, the same position he qualified at Milwaukee.
FIRESTONE INDY LIGHTS QUALIFYING QUOTES:
JACK HAWKSWORTH (No. 77 Schmidt Peterson c/w Curb-Agajanian): "It's so important around here. The race isn't done yet, there's a long way to go, but I got a good start. Man, it feels good, this feels awesome. Best pole I ever had, it just makes me feel great. Big thanks to the team, the whole 77 crew, great job. We've got a lot of work to do tomorrow but we're in great position. We've been great all weekend, we're just going to go out there tomorrow and just get after it. It's a great day."
CARLOS MUNOZ (No. 26 Dialy-Ser/Andretti Autosport): "It was a strange qualifying... a lot of red flags. I was really fast, but, I don't know, the red flags in the end really didn't help us. With the guys going out during the red flag, they really slowed down everyone. Tomorrow we start second; it's a long race, we're really fast, so we'll see."
GABBY CHAVES (No. 7 Schmidt Peterson c/w Curb-Agajanian): "Our qualifying session was pretty good today. We started off quick and then the last four or five minutes of the session everyone was pushing as hard as they could like always. I was trying my hardest but I made a small mistake that may have cost me the pole. We're happy though because our qualifying efforts are improving right now. We tried our best for pole today and didn't make it but we'll be going for the win tomorrow."
SAGE KARAM (No. 8 Schmidt Peterson c/w Curb-Agajanian): "Overall that was a good session for us considering how poorly the last several qualifying sessions have gone. We're right by the guys we need to be around for the championship, but it obviously help to be in front of them. I had the pace to be ahead of them but I made a few small mistakes on clean laps. Close to the end of the session a car spun out in front of me and the flag marshall wasn't displaying a yellow flag. I didn't see him, clipped him and had to come in for a new front wing. We're starting on the second row after a crazy session though so we're in good shape for tomorrow."
ZACH VEACH (No. 12 Replay XD/Andretti Autosport): "Well, we're back to where we don't want to be - P6 in qualifying. We just didn't have the run that we wanted. We were in the top three for most of the session... we were really pushing hard and then got caught out on a red flag at the end; we didn't really get the last few laps we wanted. Qualifying is one the important things here, but we'll get through it. We'll battle our way through the race and try to get up towards the front tomorrow."
SUNDAY'S SCHEDULE (all times local):
7 a.m. Garages open
10:15-10:45 a.m. IZOD IndyCar Series warmup
12:35 p.m. Firestone Indy Lights Grand Prix of Baltimore (35 laps/70.32 miles), NBC Sports Network (Taped, 5 p.m.)
1:35 p.m. Grand Prix of Baltimore presented by SRT pre-race
2:33 p.m. Command to start engines by Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown
2:40 p.m.Grand Prix of Baltimore presented by SRT (75 laps/153 miles), NBC Sports Network (Live)
1. (77) Jack Hawksworth, 01:24.4910 (86.921)
2. (26) Carlos Munoz, 01:24.9924 (86.408)
3. (7) Gabby Chaves, 01:24.9938 (86.406)
4. (8) Sage Karam, 01:25.1211 (86.277)
5. (5) Peter Dempsey, 01:25.5112 (85.883)
6. (12) Zach Veach, 01:25.6487 (85.746)
7. (56) Matthew Di Leo, 01:26.4814 (84.920)
8. (17) Dalton Kellett, 01:26.6269 (84.777)
9. (4) Jorge Goncalvez, 01:26.8998 (84.511)
10. (6) Giancarlo Serenelli, no time (no speed)
11. (2) Juan Pablo Garcia, no time (no speed)
