Castroneves leads Penske front row

The Penske duo dominated the Fast Six session that decided the top three rows of the grid, with Castroneves and Briscoe repeatedly swapping provisional pole early on.

Ultimately it was the Brazilian, who took pole at Lexington last year and won the race twice in his Champ Car days, who held on to clinch the top spot by 0.02 seconds after a few slides by Briscoe on his final shots at pole.

"It was a great battle between Ryan and me," Castroneves said. "This morning we were talking about what a great chance we had to start on the front row with both cars and we did it. It was tough battle.

"This morning I was still having difficulty with Turn 1. And again in the first (of the three stage knock-out) qualifying sesssion. But we found the cure in the second session and, luckily, I was able to put a good lap together early in the final segment and nobody was able to beat it."

Marco Andretti (Andretti Green Racing) snatched third from Newman/Haas/Lanigan's Justin Wilson late in the final session, with championship leader Scott Dixon (Ganassi) only managing sixth behind AGR driver Tony Kanaan.

"We didn't make the right changes for the final segment," said Dixon. "I knew we had too much understeer from the moment I got up to speed, but by the time we pitted to dial-in some more front wing the tires had five or six laps on them and we had pretty much lost our chance for a quick time."

Impressive underdog Buddy Rice came within 0.0007 seconds of making it into the Fast Six so was frustrated to have to settle for seventh on the grid, with KV Racing Technology's Oriol Servia, Dale Coyne Racing's Bruno Junqueira and AGR's Hideki Mutoh completing the top ten.

Several major contenders failed to get beyond the group stages of qualifying. The most notable group one casualties were Ganassi's Dan Wheldon - who was edged out when Meira improved right at the end of their session - and Watkins Glen winner Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman), who lost his two best laps as a punishment for spinning into the Turn 9 gravel and causing a stoppage.

They will start 13th and 15th, while HVM driver EJ Viso only managed 17th despite his eye-catching practice times.

Group two also claimed some high profile scalps. Graham Rahal (Newman/Haas/Lanigan) fell outside the top six cut-off in the closing seconds thanks to a late jump by Junqueira, and AGR's Danica Patrick - despite starting on the front row at Lexington a year ago - never looked like reaching the second part of qualifying this time and was left in 20th on the grid.

Provisional starting order:

Pos  Driver             Team                 Time
 1.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               1:07.2480
 2.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               1:07.2657
 3.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       1:07.4107
 4.  Justin Wilson      Newman/Haas/Lanigan  1:07.5442
 5.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       1:07.5750
 6.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              1:07.5930
 7.  Buddy Rice         Dreyer & Reinbold    1:07.7551
 8.  Oriol Servia       KV                   1:07.8447
 9.  Bruno Junqueira    Dale Coyne           1:07.8689
10.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       1:07.9031
11.  Vitor Meira        Panther              1:08.0034
12.  Will Power         KV                   1:08.0678
13.  Dan Wheldon        Ganassi              1:08.3379
14.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  1:08.0459
15.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Rahal Letterman      1:08.3444
16.  Mario Dominguez    Pacific Coast        1:08.0742
17.  EJ Viso            HVM                  1:08.4668
18.  Enrique Bernoldi   Conquest             1:08.2645
19.  Mario Moraes       Dale Coyne           1:08.5580
20.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       1:08.3609
21.  Darren Manning     Foyt                 1:09.1560
22.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               1:09.0310
23.  AJ Foyt IV         Vision               1:09.3607
24.  Marty Roth         Roth                 1:10.9141
25.  Jaime Camara       Conquest             1:10.5110
26.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold    1:12.2709