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Power on pole again at Barber

Will Power took yet another pole position in qualifying for the Barber Motorsports Park IndyCar race

Having been fastest in his round one group, then only narrowly beaten by Scott Dixon in round two, Power quickly put in a 1m11.455s lap for Penske in the 'fast six' pole shoot-out to guarantee a repeat of his St Petersburg pole.

Just like practice yesterday, a Penske one-two-three looked to be on the cards, with Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves becoming Power's closest rivals. But right at the end of today's unusually-scheduled early morning qualifying, Ganassi driver Dixon managed to snatch third from Castroneves.

Despite driving with a broken wrist and having spun early in the Fast Six, Justin Wilson took an excellent fifth for the grid for Dreyer & Reinbold, just ahead of the similarly impressive Oriol Servia (Newman/Haas), who was competitive from the outset in only his second weekend back in the series.

Reigning champion and St Petersburg winner Dario Franchitti looked good for a place in the Fast Six until Servia edged him out by 0.016s at the last moment in round two, leaving the Ganassi driver seventh.

He shares row four with Newman/Haas' second driver James Hinchcliffe, as the Canadian newcomer produced an outstanding performance in qualifying for his IndyCar debut.

Graham Rahal was only 10th for Ganassi's new second team, but there were encouraging results for several smaller squads, with Alex Tagliani getting Sam Schmidt Motorsports into the top 12 again, and HVM's Simona de Silvestro and AFS' Raphael Matos only just missing out on qualification for round two.

Andretti Autosports and KV Racing Technology both struggled. Marco Andretti was the only member of his father's team to get beyond the group stages and ended up ninth, while team-mates Mike Conway - a front row starter at Barber last year - and Ryan Hunter-Reay were 16th and 17th, and Danica Patrick 22nd.

Takuma Sato was KV's top man in 11th, as Tony Kanaan's difficult weekend continued and he struggled to 24th.

Simon Pagenaud, substituting for Ana Beatriz at Dreyer & Reinbold due to the Brazilian's broken wrist, took 23rd on the grid for his IndyCar debut.

Pos  Driver               Team               Time        Gap
 1.  Will Power           Penske             1m11.4546s
 2.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske             1m11.7361s  + 0.2815s
 3.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi            1m11.8826s  + 0.4280s
 4.  Helio Castroneves    Penske             1m12.1247s  + 0.6701s
 5.  Justin Wilson        Dreyer & Reinbold  1m12.3085s  + 0.8539s
 6.  Oriol Servia         Newman/Haas        1m12.4394s  + 0.9848s
 7.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi            1m11.7090s  (Round 2)
 8.  James Hinchcliffe    Newman/Haas        1m11.8183s  (Round 2)
 9.  Marco Andretti       Andretti           1m11.8672s  (Round 2)
10.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi            1m11.9712s  (Round 2)
11.  Takuma Sato          KV                 1m12.1667s  (Round 2)
12.  Alex Tagliani        Schmidt            1m12.3485s  (Round 2)
13.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM                1m12.2559s  (Group 1)
14.  Raphael Matos        AFS                1m12.4094s  (Group 2)
15.  JR Hildebrand        Panther            1m12.2684s  (Group 1)
16.  Mike Conway          Andretti           1m12.5191s  (Group 2)
17.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti           1m12.3370s  (Group 1)
18.  EJ Viso              KV                 1m12.6582s  (Group 2)
19.  Vitor Meira          Foyt               1m12.5677s  (Group 1)
20.  Sebastien Bourdais   Coyne              1m12.6896s  (Group 2)
21.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi            1m12.5857s  (Group 1)
22.  Danica Patrick       Andretti           1m12.7257s  (Group 2)
23.  Simon Pagenaud       Dreyer & Reinbold  1m12.5900s  (Group 1)
24.  Tony Kanaan          KV                 1m12.8892s  (Group 2)
25.  James Jakes          Coyne              1m12.7147s  (Group 1)
26.  Sebastian Saavedra   Conquest           1m13.0858s  (Group 2)

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