Franchitti leads all-Ganassi front row

The 2007 title winner maintained the form that had seen him top the earlier practice session to outpace his reigning champion stablemate by 0.3 seconds around the four lap qualifying run.

The Penske duo will line up behind their Ganassi rivals when the race commences on Saturday night, with Helio Castroneves escaping a slide on his third lap to beat team-mate Ryan Briscoe.

Raphael Matos could not repeat the form that had seen him second in free practice, but still took sixth for Luczo Dragon, just behind Newman/Haas/Lanigan's Graham Rahal, who showed great improvement over his practice performance to take the 'best of the rest' spot.

EJ Viso, who has endured a desperately unlucky season so far and is yet to finish a race in 2009, was hugely encouraged to qualify seventh for HVM.

Hideki Mutoh remained the best of the Andretti Green quartet in eighth, while his 2008 Richmond winning team-mate Tony Kanaan was off the pace having missed most of practice due to a fuel leak. The Brazilian will start a lowly 17th, with team-mate Marco Andretti just one place ahead and ruing a poor first lap.

Danica Patrick squeezed into the top ten in AGR's other car, taking 10th behind the continually impressive Tomas Scheckter in the Dreyer & Reinbold entry.

The teams now have a 30-minute extra practice session later tonight in preparation for the race, which is scheduled to run under the lights on Saturday evening.

Pos  Driver             Team                 Speed
 1.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi              167.315
 2.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              166.638
 3.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               165.931
 4.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               165.749
 5.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon         164.928
 6.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  165.218
 7.  EJ Viso            HVM                  164.629
 8.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       164.575
 9.  Tomas Scheckter    Dreyer & Reinbold    164.441
10.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       164.197
11.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold    164.129
12.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan  164.071
13.  Dan Wheldon        Panther              163.843
14.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               163.824
15.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                163.506
16.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       162.780
17.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       162.634
18.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Foyt                 162.506
19.  Mario Moraes       KV                   160.895
20.  Jaques Lazier      3G                   153.176