Rahal takes first oval pole at Kansas

The American heads Dario Franchitti and Helio Castroneves on the provisional grid - but the latter pair's qualifying runs are both under review by Indy Racing League officials to see if they illegally dipped below the white line.

If Franchitti and Castroneves are disqualified, Newman/Haas/Lanigan will gain a front row sweep, for Rahal's rookie team-mate Robert Doornbos was a spectacular fourth fastest in his first ever oval qualifying session.

Championship leader Franchitti had held on to the top spot for most of the session, which was delayed by 40 minutes while a major oil spillage from the preceding Truck qualifying was cleaned up.

It looked like only the officials would be able to deny Franchitti pole, but even while they were deliberating whether to penalise the Long Beach winner, Rahal produced a four-lap average of 211.311mph to take his second pole of the season after also leading the field to the start at St Petersburg.

The result was the first time that one of the recent Champ Car convert teams had taken an oval pole in the IndyCar Series.

"I think this is even sweeter, for us to be on pole on an oval is quite an achievement," said Rahal. "It shows how hard these guys have worked all winter long. It's incredible for us."

Danica Patrick completes the current top five for Andretti Green, despite reckoning that she had never had so much oversteer on a qualifying run before.

Champion and practice pace-setter Scott Dixon took sixth in the second Ganassi car, followed by AGR's Marco Andretti and KV driver Mario Moraes, who secured a career-best eighth on the grid.

Double Kansas winner Dan Wheldon was 11th for Panther Racing, behind Tony Kanaan (AGR) and Ryan Briscoe (Penske).

Having taken a shock ninth in practice, series returnee Sarah Fisher had to settle for a still-impressive 13th in qualifying in her self-run car, one place ahead of another female driver making her seasonal debut in Milka Duno, who has replaced Darren Manning at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.

Ryan Hunter-Reay, who started the season with second at St Petersburg, continued to struggle for speed as he had in practice. The Vision Racing driver was slowest of all.

Pos  Driver             Team                 Speed
 1.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  211.311
 2.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi              210.967
 3.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               210.857
 4.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan  210.665
 5.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       210.470
 6.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              210.368
 7.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       210.220
 8.  Mario Moraes       KV                   210.197
 9.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               210.098
10.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       210.082
11.  Dan Wheldon        Panther              209.144
12.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               208.956
13.  Sarah Fisher       Fisher               208.543
14.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold    208.537
15.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       208.506
16.  Vitor Meira        Foyt                 208.461
17.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon         208.382
18.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold    208.145
19.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                207.971
20.  EJ Viso            HVM                  206.779
21.  Stanton Barrett    3G                   205.820
22.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Vision               205.673