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Will Power takes pole for inaugural Baltimore IndyCar race

Will Power's hopes of taking another slice out of Dario Franchitti's points lead were given a boost after he claimed his second IndyCar pole position in as many weekends at the Baltimore street circuit this afternoon

Power took the top spot with a 1m20.2447s effort that was around 0.6 seconds quicker than he managed in practice this morning. The Ganassi team again proved to be his main threat, but this time it was Graham Rahal who came closest, the American missing Power's time by 0.1s.

Penske's Ryan Briscoe will start from third ahead of Franchitti, who almost missed out on even making an appearance in the final phase of qualifying after spinning on his last lap during the opening session while sitting on the bump spot in sixth. Fortunately for the Ganassi driver no one behind him improved their time, although James Jakes (Dale Coyne Racing) came within just 0.016s of causing a major upset.

The opening sessions were also fraught for KV's Takuma Sato, who was stripped of his two quickest laps for triggering full-course yellows by spinning and stalling at the Turn 3 hairpin. Both of the laps that the Japanese driver had struck off would have been good enough to see him through to the final part of qualifying, but he will instead be forced to start from the rear of the grid.

A good performance from Sebastien Bourdais was rewarded with fifth for Dale Coyne Racing, the Frenchman qualifying just ahead of Andretti's Ryan Hunter-Reay and Penske's Helio Castroneves. EJ Viso (KV), Mike Conway (Andretti) and Scott Dixon (Ganassi) completed the top 10.

Pos  Driver               Team                Time        Gap
 1.  Will Power           Penske              1m20.2447s
 2.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi             1m20.3238s  + 0.0791s
 3.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske              1m20.7023s  + 0.4576s
 4.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi             1m20.7118s  + 0.4671s
 5.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dale Coyne          1m20.9725s  + 0.7278s
 6.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti            1m21.0095s  + 0.7648s
 7.  Helio Castroneves    Penske              1m20.8503s  Part 2
 8.  Mike Conway          Andretti            1m20.9078s  Part 2
 9.  EJ Viso              KV                  1m20.9416s  Part 2
10.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi             1m21.0617s  Part 2
11.  Tony Kanaan          KV                  1m21.3764s  Part 2
12.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM                 1m21.7382s  Part 2
13.  James Jakes          Dale Coyne          1m21.6046s  Group 1
14.  Vitor Meira          Foyt                1m21.9707s  Group 2
15.  Giorgio Pantano      Dreyer & Reinbold   1m21.6857s  Group 1
16.  Oriol Servia         Newman/Haas         1m21.9856s  Group 2
17.  James Hinchcliffe    Newman/Haas         1m21.7882s  Group 1
18.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi             1m22.3963s  Group 2
19.  JR Hildebrand        Panther             1m22.0232s  Group 1
20.  Martin Plowman       AFS/Sam Schmidt     1m22.5638s  Group 2
21.  Alex Tagliani        Sam Schmidt         1m22.1596s  Group 1
22.  Ana Beatriz          Dreyer & Reinbold   1m22.9070s  Group 2
23.  Marco Andretti       Andretti            1m22.8926s  Group 1
24.  Tomas Scheckter      Dreyer & Reinbold   1m22.9769s  Group 2
25.  Danica Patrick       Andretti            1m23.0159s  Group 1
26.  Sebastian Saavedra   Conquest            1m23.4736s  Group 2
27.  Ed Carpenter         Sarah Fisher        1m24.5361s  Group 1
28.  Takuma Sato          KV                  1m25.3139s  Group 2

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