Andretti beats Rahal to first pole

Rahal had held provisional pole for much of the session in his Newman/Haas/Lanigan car, in a highly impressive performance on his debut at a short oval.

But Andretti, who was the penultimate car in the qualifying order, was 0.2 seconds faster than Rahal on his four-lap run and duly beat his compatriot to pole.

"I knew the car was good, but I didn't want to take the tyres out too soon," Andretti said. "If you're going to take them out, it's going to be when the tyres are new. I was able to do a perfect first lap that enabled me to get after it the next three laps. At the end, it was on the edge of giving up."

The result broke the series record for the youngest driver to win a pole position. The previous benchmark had been Tomas Scheckter's 2002 achievement of taking pole in Texas aged 21 years and 260 days. Andretti is currently 79 days past his 21st birthday.

The Andretti/Rahal front row also conjured memories of classic duels between the two drivers' fathers Michael Andetti and Bobby Rahal. The last time an Andretti and Rahal started on the front row was at New Hampshire in 1992, when Bobby Rahal won the pole and Michael Andretti started second, with Rahal winning the race.

Graham Rahal, who was five years old at the time, doesn't remember much of his father's battles with Andretti.

"As kids, we probably didn't think about that too much," Rahal said. "It was more about playing in the dirt at the racetrack than caring about what was going on out there. I'm sure they've got plenty of good stories."

Andretti added: "I think it's cool, to say the least. It's very special to see how we're able to carry it on. It's a good story, but I'm just focused on winning races and trying to challenge for the championship."

Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon will start third for Ganassi, joined on row two by another rapid former Champ Car driver in KV Racing's Will Power.

The Australian hinted at pole-winning speed in his early laps before fading, as had Helio Castroneves, who ended up fifth for Penske.

Behind Andretti's Andretti-Green Racing teammate Tony Kanaan and Dixon's teammate Dan Wheldon, another trio of 'transition' drivers completed the top ten, with Conquest's Enrique Bernoldi, KV's Oriol Servia and HVM's EJ Viso filling eighth to 10th places.

"A lot of them have been here before, and they had the (rookie) practice yesterday, so it's not a surprise," Dixon said. "It's good for the sport. This is what we need. It's starting to get a little more fair for them on the ovals, and that's what they need. The big circuits are still going to be very tough for them, though."

Rahal added that his former teammate Sebastien Bourdais had predicted N/H/L would be strong at Milwaukee, where he took victory with them in 2006.

"Sebastien called us earlier in the week and said he thought we would challenge for the pole here," Rahal said. "We were like, 'Yeah, right. There's no way.' But the guys did a good job. They did their homework, and here we are."

Rahal's teammate Justin Wilson struggled with oversteer and only managed 22nd.

Vitor Meira will start at the back of the field after crashing at Turn 2 on his second lap. The Brazilian spun into the outside wall then rebounded back across the track and hit the inside barrier, but was unhurt.

"The wind was real bad with its direction between Turns 1 and 2," Meira said. "You had to get on it right away without knowing really what you had. It just got around on me. I trusted it, and I thought it would do something, but it didn't."

Marty Roth did not participate in qualifying following his heavy accident in morning practice and is considered unlikely to start tomorrow's race. But his Roth Racing teammate John Andretti gave the team something to smile about by qualifying a respectable 16th.

With at least 26 drivers set to take the start, the event will be the busiest major open-wheel race at Milwaukee since the 1996 CART Champ Car round, which boasted a 28-car grid.

Andretti - whose father won that particular race - said the size of the field was causing some issues with pit space.

"This morning in practice I clipped Danica's tyre," Andretti said. "I thought I had it cleared by a mile. As a team, we're going to try to help each other out in the pits, but it's hard with the oval (steering) rack to get it turned back to the right after you head into your pit. You can get around the guy in front of you, but then you're headed into the wall. It will be difficult."

Pos  Driver             Team                 Speed
 1.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       168.079mph
 2.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  167.654mph
 3.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              167.637mph
 4.  Will Power         KV                   167.265mph
 5.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               166.667mph
 6.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       166.473mph
 7.  Dan Wheldon        Ganassi              166.195mph
 8.  Enrique Bernoldi   Conquest             165.216mph
 9.  Oriol Servia       KV                   165.190mph
10.  EJ Viso            HVM                  164.843mph
11.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               164.106mph
12.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Rahal Letterman      164.066mph
13.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       163.702mph
14.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       163.368mph
15.  Bruno Junqueira    Dale Coyne           163.123mph
16.  John Andretti      Roth                 162.449mph
17.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               162.139mph
18.  AJ Foyt IV         Vision               162.049mph
19.  Buddy Rice         Dreyer & Reinbold    161.903mph
20.  Darren Manning     Foyt                 160.787mph
21.  Townsend Bell      Dreyer & Reinbold    160.311mph
22.  Justin Wilson      Newman/Haas/Lanigan  159.927mph
23.  Mario Moraes       Dale Coyne           155.511mph
24.  Jaime Camara       Conquest             154.613mph
25.  Mario Dominguez    Pacific Coast        150.071mph
26.  Vitor Meira        Panther              no time
27.  Marty Roth         Roth                 no time