Dixon beats Castroneves to pole

Ganassi driver Dixon dominated the Fast Six session that decided the leading positions, ultimately taking his sixth pole of the year by almost half a second.

Castroneves (Penske) tried in vain to get on terms with Dixon's time, but had to settle for the outside of the front row.

Oriol Servia claimed third for KV Racing, despite a wild spin at the end of qualifying, ahead of Newman/Haas/Lanigan's Justin Wilson. This was a remarkable result for Wilson considering he had nearly been eliminated in part one of qualifying. Only a last gasp lap saw him scrape through to the second session in 12th, as until that late effort he had been facing a tenth row start.

Ryan Briscoe put the second Penske entry fifth on the grid, alongside Wilson's teammate Graham Rahal.

Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman Racing) and Tony Kanaan (Andretti Green) narrowly missed the Fast Six cut and will share row four, ahead of HVM's EJ Viso, whose session was ended by a suspension failure, but not before he had earned his best starting position yet. Danica Patrick completed the top ten in the second-best AGR car.

Both Ganassi's Dan Wheldon and KV Racing's Will Power broke their rear suspension on the Turn 3 wall in first qualifying, yet were able to reach the top 12 session using their existing times. Only Wheldon managed to get back out in time for the second session though, and he had to settle for 11th place.

They still fared better than Tomas Scheckter (Luczo Dragon) and Bruno Junqueira (Dale Coyne), who had heavy accidents in the first segment - Scheckter's before he had even set a time. Junqueira was quick enough to reach part two of qualifying when he spun into the wall on the exit of Turn 2, but with his best times deleted for causing a stoppage, he tumbled to the tail of the field.

Marco Andretti's underwhelming weekend continued as his AGR car was eliminated at the first hurdle, while Alex Tagliani will start 21st for his surprise IRL IndyCar Series debut. The Canadian was another driver to lose his best times for prompting a full course yellow, having spun and blocked the track at Turn 3.

Following his string of practice accidents, Marty Roth has withdrawn from the Detroit event on the advice of series officials.

Pos  Driver             Team                 Time
 1.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              1:12.2861
 2.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               1:12.7649
 3.  Oriol Servia       KV                   1:12.9618
 4.  Justin Wilson      Newman/Haas/Lanigan  1:13.0530
 5.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               1:13.1004
 6.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  1:13.6464
 7.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Rahal Letterman      1:12.9511
 8.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       1:13.2339
 9.  EJ Viso            HVM                  1:13.5354
10.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       1:13.9158
11.  Dan Wheldon        Ganassi              1:13.9267
12.  Will Power         KV                   no time
13.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       1:14.1623
14.  Vitor Meira        Panther              1:13.6678
15.  Darren Manning     Foyt                 1:14.2619
16.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       1:13.9010
17.  AJ Foyt IV         Vision               1:14.3486
18.  Buddy Rice         Dreyer & Reinbold    1:15.0969
19.  Mario Moraes       Dale Coyne           1:14.4841
20.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               1:15.3061
21.  Alex Tagliani      Conquest             1:16.6407
22.  Jaime Camara       Conquest             1:16.7047
23.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold    1:19.0865
24.  Bruno Junqueira    Dale Coyne           1:22.3955
25.  Tomas Scheckter    Luczo Dragon         no time