Takuma Sato claims first IndyCar pole position at Iowa

In another strong short-oval performance for KV Racing Technology, Sato's pole position was backed up by a third place for his team-mate Tony Kanaan, who held provisional pole for a long while after an early qualifying run.

The KV duo were split by Danica Patrick, in the Andretti Autosport driver's best qualifying performance of the year so far.

With JR Hildebrand taking a strong fourth place for Panther Racing, the best of the Penske and Ganassi cars were back on row three, which will be shared by title rivals Will Power (Penske) and Dario Franchitti (Ganassi).

James Hinchcliffe impressed with seventh place for Newman/Haas, despite missing much of morning practice with a broken oil line.

Andretti Autosport's Ryan Hunter-Reay and Mike Conway took eighth and ninth, ahead of Ryan Briscoe in the next Penske entry. The team's third driver Helio Castroneves was back in 13th, while a very slow first lap in an oversteering car left Ganassi's Scott Dixon way back in 23rd.

Simona de Silvestro withdrew from the event earlier in the day, when a medical examination revealed that the HVM driver was still suffering from the effects of concussion from her Milwaukee qualifying crash.

Pos  Driver              Team               Speed (mph)
 1.  Takuma Sato         KV                 180.375
 2.  Danica Patrick      Andretti           180.210
 3.  Tony Kanaan         KV                 179.833
 4.  JR Hildebrand       Panther            179.569
 5.  Will Power          Penske             179.474
 6.  Dario Franchitti    Ganassi            179.474
 7.  James Hinchcliffe   Newman/Haas        179.385
 8.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    Andretti           179.305
 9.  Mike Conway         Andretti           179.185
10.  Ryan Briscoe        Penske             178.771
11.  Oriol Servia        Newman/Haas        178.742
12.  Justin Wilson       Dreyer & Reinbold  178.631
13.  Helio Castroneves   Penske             178.570
14.  Ed Carpenter        Sarah Fisher       178.510
15.  Alex Tagliani       Sam Schmidt        178.426
16.  Vitor Meira         Foyt               178.365
17.  Marco Andretti      Andretti           178.165
18.  Ana Beatriz         Dreyer & Reinbold  177.821
19.  EJ Viso             KV                 177.680
20.  Graham Rahal        Ganassi            177.509
21.  Charlie Kimball     Ganassi            177.280
22.  Alex Lloyd          Dale Coyne         177.257
23.  Scott Dixon         Ganassi            175.784
24.  James Jakes         Dale Coyne         173.365
25.  Sebastian Saavedra  Conquest

Order set by average speed over two laps