Qualifying: Castroneves snatches pole

"We worked very hard to achieve that," said Castroneves. "I do believe that was as fast as I could go. The car felt very good, very strong. Hopefully for the race, we can keep the same speed."

His pipped Homestead winner Sam Hornish Jr by 0.0171sec for the top spot, putting the defending race winner and series champion on the outside of the front row for Sunday's event.

"I had to lift just a little bit going down into Turn 1, and right after I did that, I said to myself, 'I can't believe I just did that'," said Hornish. "I probably could have been down in the 19s, but it's just one of those things"

Jeff Ward came on late in the session to take the third spot in the order in the Ganassi Racing G-Force, bumping Mo Nunn's sophomore driver Felipe Giaffone to the outside of the second row, meaning that three of the first four spots will be taken by teams that have come to the IRL this year from the rival CART FedEx Series.

Tomas Scheckter rounded out the top five in the Red Bull Cheever Dallara-Infiniti machine, out-qualifying his veteran teammate Eddie Cheever Jr by 11 spots. Scheckter and Robbie Buhl made it an all-Infiniti third row while practice pacesetter Gil de Ferran had to settle for the seventh spot.

For full qualifying results, click here.