Artem Petrov wins fight for first Indy Pro 2000 pole at Indianapolis

Artem Petrov took his first Indy Pro 2000 pole by just 0.0647 seconds over Juncos Racing team-mate Sting Ray Robb at Indianapolis.

The triple-header on the famous circuit’s road course layout has two qualifying sessions for the theee races, and Petrov’s pole puts him at the front of the order for race one.

It was Robb who set the pace at first in the 20-minute session, which was delayed by a circuit-side sprinkler going off and followed a morning doused in fog, with DEForce Racing’s Parker Thompson initially posing the greatest challenge.

Most drivers returned to the pits in the middle of the session, with Robb staying in some time longer than his opposition. When he eventually returned to track he immediately lowered the provisional pole time, and it wasn’t until the final three minutes that the competition seemed to wake up to him.

Turn 3 Motorsport’s Danial Frost moved up to second place after improving in sixth on is previous lap, before Robb improved again at the top. Petrov rose up the order to fourth at the same time, while Robb lowered the pace even more with two minutes to go.

Petrov responded with the lap that would then stand for pole, then opted to run through the pits next time around while his rivals searched for improvements. Thompson almost matched Robb but had to settle for third, while Forst and Pabst Racing’s Hunter McElrea set near-identical times in fourth and fifth.

Exclusive Autosport’s Braden Eves, the reigning USF2000 champion, demoted a very comfortable looking Colin Kaminsky (Pabst) to seventh at the end, while points leader Devlin DeFrancesco was half a second off in eighth place in his Andretti Autosport-run car.

Qualifying results