Castroneves on pole again

It was the fourth pole of the season for Castroneves, who now has 22 poles in his open-wheel career and has started on the front row in a remarkable 39 per cent of his 77 IRL races.

"That just goes to show how much work I've done in the past and how much work we continue to do as a group," Castroneves said. "That's kept us going. Things like this help us forget bad results. It's great. I'm excited. Let's just try to make this carry through to tomorrow."

It also was the third time Penske teammates have swept the first two starting positions for a race at Michigan International Speedway, which Roger Penske owned and operated from 1973 to 1999. Three Penske drivers have won from the pole at Michigan - Rick Mears in 1981 and 1991, Bobby Unser in 1979 and Mario Andretti in 1980.

"We've focused on the small details to make the car go fast," Castroneves said. "It didn't show up much last year because Honda seemed to be dominating.

"When it came to races last year with the Toyota engine, we had to run something close to a qualifying set-up just to keep up. Now everybody is on the same engine, but we haven't changed anything in our set-up. We've kept the same thing, and it's been showing a lot of speed."

Castroneves was clocked at 31.2138 seconds - 216.777 mph - around the two-mile, D-shaped oval. His lap and Hornish's effort of 216.466 mph were more than 2mph faster than their closest challenger, Tony Kanaan.

"We've had a really good car in both qualifying trim and race trim, so we're really looking forward to tomorrow's race," Hornish said. "We really have a good shot to get out of here with a win. The goal is to have a Penske 1-2. Helio got one today, so I'll get one tomorrow."

It's not a stretch to predict one of them will do it. The two Penske drivers have combined to win six races so far this season and are locked in a tight points battle with Target Chip Ganassi Racing drivers Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon. Hornish leads Dixon by 25 points with four races remaining, including Sunday's round.

"This is such a wide track," Catsroneves said. "Even if a guy's car isn't handling well, he's able to get clean air and come back and continue to follow the guys who are fast.

"This will be a typical follow-the-leader race, and it's notorious for close finishes. People are going to have to be patient and let someone take charge. I'm just going to try to run my race and forget about those guys. Hopefully it will fall into our lap."

Ganassi's drivers are hoping otherwise. Dixon and Wheldon still have a strong chance to catch Hornish, especially with a road race at Infineon Raceway lurking among the final four races. But to start the comeback, they need to come from behind Sunday, as Dixon will start fifth and Wheldon ninth.

"The starting position doesn't really matter here, as long as you're in the top 10," Dixon said. "You want to stay there for most of the race until the final sprint. There are two or three lanes to run, but our car is definitely stronger on the high line. I can run very near the wall."

Kanaan, who won last week at Milwaukee, says he found renewed energy from the win, which ended Andretti Green Racing's nine-race losing streak and was Kanaan's first victory since he won at Infineon nearly a year ago.

"We're carrying some of the momentum from Milwaukee, but this is a completely different type of track," Kanaan said. "The team is pumped. I think something has carried over this week. We never really worked on qualifying set-up. We're just focused on the race."

Ed Carpenter, whose incident with Castroneves last weekend in Milwaukee caused a stir in the paddock, will start fourth after a lap of 214.540 mph for Vision Racing, the best start of his career.

"We've had good race cars everywhere we've been," Carpenter said. "For a couple of races, I was struggling with qualifying, so we've really been putting a lot of effort into qualifying to improve our starts. It makes it easier when you start with the quick guys here because you just hang on to them."

Following Carpenter on the grid will be Dixon, Vitor Meira, Dario Franchitti and Tomas Scheckter. Wheldon and Buddy Rice rounded out the top 10.

But Saturday's summit belonged to the team that has reached it more than any other this season.

"The team is in a great atmosphere right now," Castroneves said. "Sam and I have been sharing information, and I think it's benefiting both of us. Sam is very talented, and he's pushed me to become better. We met this morning and we both knew we had fast cars. We predicted we'd end up where we're at."

Qualifying times:

Pos  Driver            Team                  Time
 1.  Helio Castroneves Penske             33.2138
 2.  Sam Hornish       Penske             33.2615
 3.  Tony Kanaan       Andretti-Green     33.5253
 4.  Ed Carpenter      Vision             33.5602
 5.  Scott Dixon       Ganassi            33.6020
 6.  Vitor Meira       Panther            33.6182
 7.  Dario Franchitti  Andretti-Green     33.6683
 8.  Tomas Scheckter   Vision             33.6881
 9.  Dan Wheldon       Ganassi            33.6931
10.  Buddy Rice        Rahal-Letterman    33.7315
11.  Danica Patrick    Rahal-Letterman    33.7462
12.  Bryan Herta       Andretti-Green     33.7700
13.  Scott Sharp       Fernandez          33.7768
14.  Kosuke Matsuura   Aguri Fernandez    33.8408
15.  Buddy Lazier      Dreyer & Reinbold  33.9226
16.  Jeff Simmons      Rahal-Letterman    34.0119
17.  Marty Roth        Roth               34.2039
18.  Jeff Bucknum      Foyt               34.2286
19.  Marco Andretti    Andretti-Green     34.3043