Castroneves nabs 1st pole after edging out Patrick

He extended his career record to 24 poles.

GLADEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Helio Castroneves’ drought is over.

The man who has grabbed more poles than any other driver in IndyCar Series history hadn’t captured one in qualifying since winning “Dancing with the Stars” last fall.

But Castroneves pushed Danica Patrick aside Friday by averaging 204.519 mph over four laps in qualifying for the Firestone Indy 200 at the Nashville Superspeedway.

He did start on the pole in Japan with positions set by points.

But this pole meant much more to Castroneves, who extended a couple of records. His series record of poles is 24 for his career with at least one in seven consecutive seasons. That is a dramatic change from last week when a broken throttle cable forced him to start last at Watkins Glen.

Castroneves summed up the one-week swing as “pretty awesome.”

“I have to thank my entire team,” he said. “They’ve been working extremely well to put that car up there. I’m just so glad we’re able to put all the puzzles together and able to finally figure out about this qualifying scenario.”

Castroneves also gave Team Penske its first pole at Nashville and 37th in the IndyCar Series.

Patrick thought for a bit that she might have her fourth career pole and first since 2005 at Chicago with an average speed of 203.335 mph. She said she was nervous waiting to see if her time would stand up once the Penske drivers hit the track. She knew it wouldn’t once she saw Castroneves’ first lap.

“The only thing that would’ve made me be on the pole is if he didn’t finish his qualifying at all,” she said.

Patrick will start on the first row for the ninth time in her career and the second time this season. She started on the front row at Homestead to start the season.

“The car was stuck, and it was pretty easy, which usually is the case when you’re up front. It’s usually not very hard,” Patrick said. “What can I say? We weren’t going to do a 204.5, so we weren’t even close to that. But the clouds helped that were out for half an hour before he went.”