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Houston IndyCar: Scott Dixon given pole after qualifying rain-out

Bad weather forced the qualifying session for the second race of IndyCar's Houston double-header to be abandoned

Heavy rain fell immediately before the session was scheduled to start. Series officials carried out several track inspections as the rain eased off, but the large amounts of standing water around the circuit finally forced the session to be called off.

Consequently, the grid for Sunday's race will be determined by entrant points, meaning that Saturday race-winner Scott Dixon will start from pole position for Ganassi, although he will not earn the usual bonus point.

"I think we probably would have liked to qualify," he said. "It seems like Helio [Castroneves] is struggling a little bit more this weekend, so if we could have had that bit of separation on the grid like yesterday, it would have been nice.

"I think if we were at a typical road course it wouldn't have been as much of an issue with this amount of rain, but as everyone knows, street courses tend to puddle a lot.

"Hopefully it clears and makes for a good day's racing. It's a lot cooler [than yesterday], and I'm not sure the start will be completely dry, but it should be pretty close, hopefully."

Current drivers' championship leader Castroneves was docked 15 entrant points at Texas Motor Speedway in June after a post-race inspection determined that his Penske car's underwing did not comply with the rules.

The Brazilian will start alongside his title rival on the front row.

The weather conditions have been forecast to improve in time for this afternoon's race.

Pos  Driver               Team/Engine
 1.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi/Honda
 2.  Helio Castroneves    Penske/Chevy
 3.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt/Honda
 4.  Marco Andretti       Andretti/Chevy
 5.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti/Chevy
 6.  Justin Wilson        Coyne/Honda
 7.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi/Honda
 8.  Will Power           Penske/Chevy
 9.  James Hinchcliffe    Andretti/Chevy
10.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi/Honda
11.  Tony Kanaan          KV/Chevy
12.  EJ Viso              Andretti/Chevy
13.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dragon/Chevy
14.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher/Honda
15.  Simona de Silvestro  KV/Chevy
16.  Takuma Sato          Foyt/Honda
17.  Mike Conway          Coyne/Honda
18.  Graham Rahal         Rahal/Honda
19.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter/Chevy
20.  James Jakes          Rahal/Honda
21.  Oriol Servia         Panther/Chevy
22.  Tristan Vautier      Schmidt/Honda
23.  Luca Filippi         Herta/Honda
24.  Sebastian Saavedra   Dragon/Chevy

All drivers use Dallara DW12 chassis

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