No. 1 qualifier Ryan Briscoe pays price for Chevy's decision at Long Beach Grand Prix



LONG BEACH - Ryan Briscoe on Saturday won the the pole for Sunday's IndyCar main event at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. He won't be starting in the front row, however.

He will be starting 11th because he drives one of 11 cars with Chevrolet engines and all were penalized 10 grid spots for unapproved engine changes.

Of the six cars in the final round of qualifying, only Dario Franchitti was driving a car not equipped with a Chevy engine; his has a Honda. That means even though Franchitti had the fourth-best time, he will start from the pole.

Briscoe, of Penske Racing, had the best lap time of 1:08.6089 in the final six. Teammate Will Power was second (1:08.7073), Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport was third (1:08.7163), Franchitti came in with a best lap of 1:09.0327, EJ Viso of KV Racing Technology was fifth (1:09.0634) and James Hinchcliffe of Andretti Autosport was sixth (1:09.2109).

After Briscoe's moved-back starting spot today at about 1:15 p.m., Power will start 12th, Hunter-Reay 13th, Viso 15th and Hinchcliffe 16th.

Seconds after he arrived in the interview room, Briscoe was asked what he thought about winning the pole, but starting 11th.

"Yeah, it bites," he said, getting a laugh out of reporters. "But we've still gotta go with it. You've gotta trust Chevrolet's judgment in this decision. "The important thing is we know we've got fast cars. It is a tough track to pass on, but the first trick is having a fast car."

With three engine makers - Chevrolet, Honda and Lotus - involved in this year's IndyCar series, a rule was made that engines could not be changed until certain mileage counts had been reached. The first threshold was 1,200 miles.

When Hinchcliffe blew an engine during testing Monday in Sonoma, he was penalized 10 spots, as per IndyCar rules.

Chevrolet then decided Thursday to pull the engines from all of its cars because it was worried that what ailed Hincliffe's engine might ail other engines as well.

All 10 incurred the penalty Hinchcliffe already had. Several drivers have complained openly about the penalty this week, basically saying it's not their fault engines had to be pulled, so they don't see why they should be the ones penalized.

Randy Bernard, CEO of IndyCar, had a response to that Saturday. He said that when he visited with engine manufacturers around the world, they all said they didn't want to go into a racing series where they have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. Thus, the mileage threshold.

"And so we created rules that allow an economical way of having a competitive series and we can't change," Bernard said. "I mean, we didn't want manufacturers building an engine for 500 miles, blowing it up and coming right back. So that's why it was there. It would take the integrity of our rules away if we just changed it.

"It's a terrible thing that's happened, but for the integrity of our sport we feel we can't move from it. And, you know, Chevy's been fantastic about it, they understand that. They've been a great sportsman on it. They've said, 'Hey, rules are rules and we're going to abide by them.' "

Unlike some others this week, Briscoe said he stands behind Chevrolet's decision to pull the rest of its engines. "I 100 percent support them in it, and we are doing the best of a bad situation," he said. "We just have to see what we can make of it tomorrow in the race."

Franchitti said while on the dais that even though he knew he was going to be on the pole regardless of what happened in the final qualifying session, "I wanted to earn it." That also got some laughs.

Afterward, he was asked if he purposely held back. Bottom line is, winning the pole outright earns a driver only one series point, which will go to Briscoe.

"No," he said. "We wanted to go out there and get on time, but I knew going in that I didn't have to take any crazy risks."

Franchitti addressed the engine changes and the penalty.

"The rules are there a reason," said Franchitti, of Target Chip Ganassi Racing. "If we knew we were going to be changing engines and there is no penalty, then Honda would have built a motor with more horsepower."

As the post-qualifying news conference continued, the drivers continued to find a way to make light of this very strange weekend.

"I know I'm not starting sixth," Hinchcliffe said.

"Who is starting sixth?" Franchitti asked.

"I have no idea who's starting sixth," Hunter-Reay said.

"Who's on first?" Franchitti said, coming up with the old Abbott & Costello gag.

There was not a lot of practice time on the track before qualifying. Friday's rain greatly limited two practice sessions and Saturday's hour-long morning session saw only 27 minutes and 53 seconds of green because several cars either went into barriers around turns or stalled out, bringing out one red flag after another.

"It was really tough," Hunter-Reay said. "You couldn't get too greedy with the cars for qualifying. You didn't know how progressive you could get with the setups.

"I think everybody played it a little bit safe that first round. Yeah, what a strange weekend so far and it's going to get even stranger tomorrow with the (grid) penalties."

With so many of the fast drivers starting from the 11th position on, today could be quite interesting from a strategy standpoint.

"Well, I mean, we'll have to look at if it's going to be a two-stop or three-stop," Briscoe said, meaning pit stops. "There's a pretty good chance it could be a two-stop race. That might affect how aggressive people run or how much people might want to save fuel at times. "I think it will depend a lot on when the cautions fall."

Power was asked if there might be more passing than usual on a track that doesn't allow a lot of passing.

"There will be a lot of crashing if that's the case," he said.

Getting the seventh-best qualifying time was rookie Josef Newgarden of Sarah Fisher Harman Racing. He had a best lap of 1:09.0697. He's driving a Honda-powered car, so he will be starting second alongside Franchitti.

Helio Castroneves of Team Penske was eighth (1:09.0846), but he will be starting 10 spots back from that. Justin Wilson of Dale Coyne Racing was ninth (1:09.0910) and he has a Honda engine, so he should be in the No. 3 spot, unless for some reason his engine is changed before Sunday.