Briscoe claims Watkins Glen pole

The Penske driver beat Newman/Haas/Lanigan's Justin Wilson to the top spot by 0.03 seconds in the final shoot-out for pole position.

Wilson chose to sit out the final moments hoping his time would prove unbeatable, only to see Briscoe sneak ahead.

Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman Racing) qualified an impressive third, beating championship leader Scott Dixon (Ganassi), who will chase his fourth straight Watkins Glen win from the outside of row two after an error on his final flying lap.

Dixon's closest title rival Helio Castroneves - who was aiming for a fourth consecutive Watkins Glen pole - will start from the tail of the 26-car field after his Penske Dallara-Honda suffered a mechanical problem before he could set a time in the first part of qualifying.

Under this year's road and street course qualifying regulations, the field is split into two groups for the first session. The top six from each group then unite for a 15-minute session that decides positions seven to 12 on the grid and sends the final six cars through to a ten minute shoot-out for the first three rows.

KV's Oriol Servia and Andretti Green's Tony Kanaan were the other men to make it through to the top six and will share row three.

Marco Andretti just missed the cut for the 'Fast Six' session and will start seventh, alongside impressive underdog Darren Manning, who again showed excellent road course speed for AJ Foyt Racing.

Ganassi's Dan Wheldon was only ninth, despite feeling that he had his most competitive road course set-up since joining the team. Vitor Meira (Panther) completed the top ten.

Bruno Junqueira had been fastest of all in the first qualifying group and looked set to mount a shock pole challenge for the tiny Dale Coyne Racing team.

But his strategy of waiting until late in the top 12 segment before attempting his flying laps backfired when Will Power (KV Racing) crashed at Turn 7. The stoppage to clear up Power's debris shortened the session by several minutes and led to a frantic last minute rush in which Junqueira could only manage 11th.

His teammate Mario Moraes and Andretti Green's Danica Patrick could consider themselves unfortunate not to make it through from the group stages of qualifying to fight for the top 12.

Both ran in group two and set faster times than the group one pace-setters, who had not been able to make their final runs after their session was curtailed when AJ Foyt IV spun his Vision Racing car into the Turn 7 barriers. But despite their speed, as Moraes and Patrick were only seventh and eighth in the faster second group, they will have to start from row seven.

Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing managed to repair Graham Rahal's car after his practice crash, but the St Petersburg winner was only able to take 18th on the grid in his patchwork car, which was running with various pieces of teammate Wilson's spare bodywork.

Pos  Driver             Team                 Time
 1.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               1:29.3456
 2.  Justin Wilson      Newman/Haas/Lanigan  1:29.3804
 3.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Rahal Letterman      1:29.6355
 4.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              1:29.6776
 5.  Oriol Servia       KV                   1:29.7068
 6.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       1:29.9938
 7.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       1:29.9668
 8.  Darren Manning     Foyt                 1:30.0474
 9.  Dan Wheldon        Ganassi              1:30.0567
10.  Vitor Meira        Panther              1:30.1172
11.  Bruno Junqueira    Dale Coyne           1:30.6213
12.  Will Power         KV                   1:32.8542
13.  Mario Moraes       Dale Coyne           1:30.3049
14.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       1:30.5647
15.  EJ Viso            HVM                  1:30.6885
16.  Enrique Bernoldi   Conquest             1:31.0196
17.  Buddy Rice         Dreyer & Reinbold    1:31.0470
18.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  1:31.2402
19.  Mario Dominguez    Pacific Coast        1:31.3614
20.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       1:31.4704
21.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               1:32.2381
22.  AJ Foyt IV         Vision               1:32.8496
23.  Jaime Camara       Conquest             1:34.5517
24.  Jay Howard         Roth                 1:35.0154
25.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold    1:36.0330
26.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               no time