Simon Pagenaud beats Helio Castroneves to Detroit IndyCar pole

Pagenaud weaved his way between the concrete walls and over the bumps of the 2.36-mile street circuit in a best time of 1m14.9166s in the final 'fast six' part of qualifying to secure his third pole of the season.

The Frenchman's effort was enough to overhaul Castroneves' earlier benchmark, the latter ending the session just 0.0119 seconds adrift of his team-mate.

Juan Pablo Montoya completed a 1-2-3 for the Penske team in qualifying, although he was more than half a second down on Castroneves in third.

Indianapolis 500 polesitter James Hinchcliffe was the best-placed of the Honda-powered runners in fourth ahead of Andretti Autosport's Carlos Munoz, while 2015 series champion Scott Dixon was sixth.

Practice pacesetter Will Power could only manage the ninth-fastest time in the second phase of qualifying, and will line up at the head of row five alongside Graham Rahal - the latter having to run conservatively after his left seatbelt clip came loose over a bump.

Power was ordered to drive through the pits at the start of the second part of qualifying after exiting them incorrectly at the start of the session, and wound up a quarter of a second slower than Munoz, who was the last man through to the fast six segment.

Josef Newgarden was the biggest casualty in the opening group stages of qualifying and will start from 14th.

The Ed Carpenter Racing driver, who sits fourth in the standings, had been second quickest early in the session, but tagged the wall on the first lap of his second run and was eventually knocked out by Mikhail Aleshin.

Shock Indy 500 winner Alexander Rossi was ninth of the 11 runners in the first qualifying group, in the middle of an Andretti Autosport sandwich.

Rossi will start Saturday's first race from 17th, two spots behind Ryan Hunter-Reay and two in front of Marco Andretti.

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