Sting Ray Robb in the Firehouse/Goodheart Animal Health Centers sponsored No. 2 on the way to his 4th Indy Pro 2000 pole of the 2020 season (Photo Courtesy Of Andersen Promotions)
By Steve Wittich
2020 Indy Pro 2000 Championship Presented by Cooper Tires champion Sting Ray Robb will lead the field to the green flag for the fourth time this season. It’s the 19-year-old Indy Lights bound driver’s sixth career pole.
The pole is seventh for Juncos Racing on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street circuit, including two NTT INDYCAR® SERIES drivers – Conor Daly and Rinus van Kalmthout (VeeKay) competing in the 2020 race.
Fourteen of the 18 pole winners in ‘St. Pete’ have gone on to win the race, including 11 of the past 12. The pole sitter’s average finishing position is 1.4, and no pole winner has finished worse than fourth.
Outside of Robb’s two-tenth of a second plus gap to Danial Frost (Turn 3 Motorsport), who will start outside the front row, the top nine qualified within one second of the pole time.
Starting on the second row, within a tenth of a second of Frost, are Parker Thompson (DEForce Racing) and Hunter McElrea (Pabst Racing).
The first 17 minutes of qualifying was mostly uneventful, with Robb holding the provisional pole for much of the time.
With just under three minutes remaining in the session, Frost grabbed the provisional pole. At that point in the session, the top five were within three-tenths of a second, and the top eight were within a half-second.
With just over a minute remaining in the session, Robb grabbed the top spot, turning a lap at 68.172 seconds, an impressive 0.255 seconds quicker than Frost.
Indy Pro 2000 Grand Prix Of St. Petersburg Presented By Cooper Tires Qualifying #1
| RANK | CAR NO. | DRIVER | TEAM | FAST LAP | DIFF. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | Sting Ray Robb | Juncos Racing | 1:08.172 | –.—- |
| 2 | 68 | Danial Frost | Turn 3 Motorsport | 1:08.427 | 0.2554 |
| 3 | 9 | Parker Thompson | DEForce Racing | 1:08.448 | 0.2763 |
| 4 | 18 | Hunter McElrea | Pabst Racing | 1:08.525 | 0.3532 |
| 5 | 42 | Artem Petrov | Juncos Racing | 1:08.541 | 0.3694 |
| 6 | 8 | Manuel Sulaiman | DEForce Racing | 1:08.730 | 0.5587 |
| 7 | 19 | Colin Kaminsky | Pabst Racing | 1:08.741 | 0.5689 |
| 8 | 3 | Rasmus Lindh | Turn 3 Motorsport | 1:08.874 | 0.7021 |
| 9 | 17 | Devlin DeFrancesco | Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport | 1:09.000 | 0.8278 |
| 10 | 6 | Moises de la Vara | DEForce Racing | 1:09.524 | 1.3524 |
| 11 | 90 | Tristan Charpentier | Exclusive Autosport | 1:09.871 | 1.6989 |
| 12 | 69 | Nate Aranda | Juncos Racing | 1:09.945 | 1.7732 |
| 13 | 83 | Charles Finelli | FatBoy Racing | 1:15.802 | 7.6302 |
| 14 | 7 | Kory Enders | DEForce Racing | No Time | — |
The Road To Indy’s middle rung is back on track tomorrow at 10:10 am for their second qualifying session.