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Helio Castroneves on Long Beach IndyCar pole after chaotic session

Helio Castroneves took advantage of an erratic IndyCar qualifying session in Long Beach to claim pole position in an all-Chevrolet top six

Will Power caused a red flag at the tail end of the final qualifying session when he locked up into the right hander at the end of the long straight.

While the Team Penske driver didn't cause any significant damage to his Dallara-Chevrolet, the resulting stoppage meant it was a one-lap shootout for pole, and left the Australian sixth as he was without a recorded lap in the final session.

Castroneves set a pole lap of 1m07.1246s to end up 0.3209 seconds ahead of Scott Dixon, while Simon Pagenaud, Tony Kanaan and Juan Pablo Montoya completed a top five covered by 0.7808s.

The result is Castroneves' second Long Beach pole in a row and his second straight pole of the 2016 season after he topped Phoenix qualifying a fortnight ago.

Uncertainty reigned at the end of the penultimate part of qualifying, as a fault with the timing system left a handful of drivers scratching their heads as to whether they would be in the final session.

Castroneves initially appeared to have missed out on the top six, but in fact was confirmed to have made the cut for the pole shootout after the times were re-evaluated.

Initially told he had set a time good enough for fourth, James Hinchcliffe had actually posted only the seventh-fastest time - highest of the Honda-powered runners.

Josef Newgarden and Ryan Hunter-Reay also looked to have made the cut for the top six according to the frozen timesheets, but when full data was downloaded by the series it revealed Kanaan and Castroneves had progressed instead.

Newgarden qualified in ninth behind Takuma Sato, while Hunter-Reay finished in 11th behind Andretti team-mate Carlos Munoz.

Formula 1 refugees Alexander Rossi and Max Chilton both failed to make it out of their respective qualifying groups - Rossi will line up 16th while Chilton will start 19th.

QUALIFYING RESULTS

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap
1 Helio Castroneves Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.1246s -
2 Scott Dixon Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.4455s 0.3209s
3 Simon Pagenaud Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.7410s 0.6164s
4 Tony Kanaan Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.7951s 0.6705s
5 Juan Pablo Montoya Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.9054s 0.7808s
6 Will Power Team Penske Dallara/Chevrolet - -
7 James Hinchcliffe Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m07.1415s -
8 Takuma Sato AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 1m07.2299s -
9 Josef Newgarden Ed Carpenter Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.2548s -
10 Carlos Munoz Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m07.2663s -
11 Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m07.3171s -
12 Luca Filippi Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m07.9660s -
13 Conor Daly Dale Coyne Racing Dallara/Honda 1m07.7520s -
14 Sebastien Bourdais KVSH Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.6432s -
15 Charlie Kimball Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m07.8065s -
16 Alexander Rossi Andretti Herta Dallara/Honda 1m07.6872s -
17 Graham Rahal Rahal Letterman Lanigan Dallara/Honda 1m07.8841s -
18 Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Dallara/Honda 1m07.8513s -
19 Max Chilton Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Chevrolet 1m08.3843s -
20 Jack Hawksworth AJ Foyt Enterprises Dallara/Honda 1m07.9929s -
21 Marco Andretti Andretti Autosport Dallara/Honda 1m08.2045s -


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