Castroneves leads Penske front row
Helio Castroneves fended off a strong challenge from his Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe to take pole position for the Mid-Ohio round of the IRL IndyCar Series
The Penske duo dominated the Fast Six session that decided the top three rows of the grid, with Castroneves and Briscoe repeatedly swapping provisional pole early on.
Ultimately it was the Brazilian, who took pole at Lexington last year and won the race twice in his Champ Car days, who held on to clinch the top spot by 0.02 seconds after a few slides by Briscoe on his final shots at pole.
"It was a great battle between Ryan and me," Castroneves said. "This morning we were talking about what a great chance we had to start on the front row with both cars and we did it. It was tough battle.
"This morning I was still having difficulty with Turn 1. And again in the first (of the three stage knock-out) qualifying sesssion. But we found the cure in the second session and, luckily, I was able to put a good lap together early in the final segment and nobody was able to beat it."
Marco Andretti (Andretti Green Racing) snatched third from Newman/Haas/Lanigan's Justin Wilson late in the final session, with championship leader Scott Dixon (Ganassi) only managing sixth behind AGR driver Tony Kanaan.
"We didn't make the right changes for the final segment," said Dixon. "I knew we had too much understeer from the moment I got up to speed, but by the time we pitted to dial-in some more front wing the tires had five or six laps on them and we had pretty much lost our chance for a quick time."
Impressive underdog Buddy Rice came within 0.0007 seconds of making it into the Fast Six so was frustrated to have to settle for seventh on the grid, with KV Racing Technology's Oriol Servia, Dale Coyne Racing's Bruno Junqueira and AGR's Hideki Mutoh completing the top ten.
Several major contenders failed to get beyond the group stages of qualifying. The most notable group one casualties were Ganassi's Dan Wheldon - who was edged out when Meira improved right at the end of their session - and Watkins Glen winner Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman), who lost his two best laps as a punishment for spinning into the Turn 9 gravel and causing a stoppage.
They will start 13th and 15th, while HVM driver EJ Viso only managed 17th despite his eye-catching practice times.
Group two also claimed some high profile scalps. Graham Rahal (Newman/Haas/Lanigan) fell outside the top six cut-off in the closing seconds thanks to a late jump by Junqueira, and AGR's Danica Patrick - despite starting on the front row at Lexington a year ago - never looked like reaching the second part of qualifying this time and was left in 20th on the grid.
Provisional starting order:
Pos Driver Team Time 1. Helio Castroneves Penske 1:07.2480 2. Ryan Briscoe Penske 1:07.2657 3. Marco Andretti Andretti Green 1:07.4107 4. Justin Wilson Newman/Haas/Lanigan 1:07.5442 5. Tony Kanaan Andretti Green 1:07.5750 6. Scott Dixon Ganassi 1:07.5930 7. Buddy Rice Dreyer & Reinbold 1:07.7551 8. Oriol Servia KV 1:07.8447 9. Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne 1:07.8689 10. Hideki Mutoh Andretti Green 1:07.9031 11. Vitor Meira Panther 1:08.0034 12. Will Power KV 1:08.0678 13. Dan Wheldon Ganassi 1:08.3379 14. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan 1:08.0459 15. Ryan Hunter-Reay Rahal Letterman 1:08.3444 16. Mario Dominguez Pacific Coast 1:08.0742 17. EJ Viso HVM 1:08.4668 18. Enrique Bernoldi Conquest 1:08.2645 19. Mario Moraes Dale Coyne 1:08.5580 20. Danica Patrick Andretti Green 1:08.3609 21. Darren Manning Foyt 1:09.1560 22. Ed Carpenter Vision 1:09.0310 23. AJ Foyt IV Vision 1:09.3607 24. Marty Roth Roth 1:10.9141 25. Jaime Camara Conquest 1:10.5110 26. Milka Duno Dreyer & Reinbold 1:12.2709
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