By alley - Jul 8, 2017, 5:50 PM ET

Power glad to have avoided early qualifying run

Will Power wound up the last man standing at Team Penske at Iowa Speedway on Saturday, and not just because he won the pole position for Sunday's Iowa Corn 300. Although it was the team's third straight pole on the 7/8-mile oval, he admitted he wasn't feeling too confident about his prospects after watching the struggles of teammates Josef Newgarden (who qualified 16th) and SImon Pagenaud (11th).

"I was a little worried when I saw my teammates' data and the gear trace; they were turning more right than left," said Power, who was the last driver to qualify. "But when Helio [Castroneves, who qualified third] went, who had a similar car to me, I thought, 'the track's coming in,' and it seemed like people got more and more consistent."

"That was a bit of a scary ride. I don't know if it was the different kind of rubber laid down by the other series or what, but the Menard's Chevy was a little loose," related the reigning series champion. "That can happen when you go out first. You're just never really sure what you're going to get.

"I'm not worried about anything though. I know the car is strong. My teammates that went out later in the session had good runs, so we'll just need to work through some traffic to get to the front. There's a lot of laps in this race, so there's time to get there."

Newgarden, a dominant winner here last year while driving for Ed Carpenter Racing, was another early runner and ended up even worse off, managing just the 16th-fastest time.

"With the order, Simon and I were guinea pigs," Newgarden said. "The track was a little slick and the Fitzgerald Glider Kits Chevrolet was loose, but I'm really confident we'll be good for the race. This was all about timing and having to go out third. I'm looking forward to a great race tomorrow. We just need to pass a bunch of people."

While obviously happy with another P1 start – his fourth of the year – Power reckoned it actually might be more beneficial for the next race.

"Obviously, around short track racing, pole is more important for the next race and good position than it is track position here. You've got to be very good in traffic, so we've got our eye on that and focusing pretty hard on that."

Power feels the race is likely to be physically taxing, too.

"It will be tough. It's a very high-G track, He said of Iowa. "It will be physically tough, and also tire degradation wise, make the tires degrade faster. It's always nice around this place when you get a yellow – you can take a breath, because you're pretty much turning the whole time. But yeah, it's the same for everyone."

Although Penske has ruled qualifying at Iowa lately, it hasn't converted any of those poles into wins – yet. Power hopes having last year's dominant winner, Newgarden, in the team will help The Captain's foursome to change that.

"I guess that is surprising, how many years we've been here and some of the drivers that we've had in the team," Power mused. "We've got the Iowa king in the team now, so they're in trouble.

Even though he's only starting 16th? "Yeah, I don't think he'll be there for long..."