Castroneves Leads Penske Front
Helio Castroneves has taken his first pole position of the season at the 1-mile Pikes Peak International Raceway oval, qualifying alongside teammate Sam Hornish Jr. to give Team Penske an all front row start
Castroneves recorded the quickest lap of 175.423 mph (20.522 seconds) - just two thousandths of a second faster than teammate Hornish, who posted a fast lap of 175.404 mph.
"I'm very happy that Marlboro Team Penske is on the front row," said Castroneves, who recorded his 10th career pole award. "Now it's my turn to be on the front. I'm extremely, extremely happy. We've been working a lot on the race car, and it definitely paid off in the qualifying."
Andretti Green Racing teammates Brian Herta and Dario Franhitti will share the second row. Franchitti, winner of last year's race - also starting from fourth - stated: "Pikes Peak is one of those tracks where it doesn't matter where you qualify; if you have a fast car you'll go to the front.
"If your car goes off, you go straight to the back. It's more important for us to have a good race car tomorrow."
Danica Patrick and reigning IRL Champion Tony Kanaan will be on the third row, while Scott Sharp, who won last week's race at Kentucky, will start from tenth position.
Pos Driver Make-Engine Speed 1. Helio Castroneves Dallara-Toyota 175.423 2. Sam Hornish Jr. Dallara-Toyota 175.404 3. Bryan Herta Dallara-Honda 175.242 4. Dario Franchitti Dallara-Honda 174.747 5. Danica Patrick Panoz-Honda 174.389 6. Tony Kanaan Dallara-Honda 174.368 7. Tomas Enge Dallara-Chevy 174.316 8. Tomas Scheckter Dallara-Chevy 173.937 9. Vitor Meira Panoz-Honda 173.830 10. Scott Sharp Panoz-Honda 173.697 11. Dan Wheldon Dallara-Honda 173.660 12. Buddy Rice Panoz-Honda 173.546 13. Scott Dixon Panoz-Toyota 173.540 14. Ryan Briscoe Panoz-Toyota 173.410 15. Roger Yasukawa Dallara-Honda 172.945 16. Kosuke Matsuura Panoz-Honda 172.005 17. Patrick Carpentier Dallara-Toyota 171.706 18. Ed Carpenter Dallara-Toyota 170.631 19. A.J. Foyt IV Dallara-Chevy 169.912 20. Alex Barron Dallara-Toyota 169.204 21. Jimmy Kite Dallara-Toyota 168.144 22. Jaques Lazier Panoz-Toyota -
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