Helio Castroneves will start Saturday's Phoenix Grand Prix from pole position after setting a searing pace during qualifying at Phoenix International Raceway on Friday afternoon.
Castroneves is one of just four drivers in the current IndyCar field to have raced at Phoenix before, with the track returning to the series' calendar for the first time since 2005 this weekend.
The Brazilian put this experience to good use to set a two-lap average speed of 192.324 mph to topple provisional pole-mand and Penske teammate Juan Pablo Montoya from the top of the timesheets.
Ganassi's Tony Kanaan came closest to beating Castroneves of the remaining runners, but finishing 0.8 mph down over the two laps to leave him second for the start of Saturday's 250 lap race.
The result marks Castroneves' 43rd pole position in Indy cars, although he has not converted one into a race win since the 2010 Indy Japan 300 at Motegi.
Following Kanaan and Montoya in second and third was Charlie Kimball, who enjoyed an impressive run to fourth for Ganassi. Ed Carpenter qualified fifth ahead of Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden, while Max Chilton impressed in his first IndyCar oval qualifying to finish eighth.
Will Power qualified ninth in his first competitive session since missing the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg due to illness, while Penske teammate Simon Pagenaud rounded out the top 10.
Alexander Rossi finished 14th in his first oval qualifying session, trailing Andretti teammates Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay as well as Schmidt Peterson Motorsports' Mikhail Aleshin.
Sebastien Bourdais struggled en route to 15th ahead of Luca Filippi and Jack Hawksworth, while Conor Daly and Graham Rahal also had problems as they languished down in 18th and 19th place respectively.
Carlos Munoz will start his first race at Phoenix from P20 after crashing hard on his first flying lap. As the second driver out on track, the Colombian slammed into the wall and hit his knees hard in the cockpit of his car.
Munoz was able to gingerly get out of his car before being taken to the medical centre for a check-up with the INDYCAR doctors, where he was found to have suffered some soft tissue damage to his legs before eventually being released from the medical centre.
Takuma Sato and James Hinchcliffe were unable to qualify at Phoenix after crashing heavily during practice at the same place as Munoz, leaving them to provisionally start 21st and 22nd respectively on Saturday night.
IndyCar Phoenix Grand Prix qualifying results
1. (3) Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 192.324
2. (10) Tony Kanaan, Chevrolet, 191.511
3. (2) Juan Pablo Montoya, Chevrolet, 191.366
4. (83) Charlie Kimball, Chevrolet, 191.220
5. (20) Ed Carpenter, Chevrolet, 190.780
6. (9) Scott Dixon, Chevrolet, 190.376
7. (21) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 190.094
8. (8) Max Chilton, Chevrolet, 189.972
9. (12) Will Power, Chevrolet, 189.749
10. (22) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 189.654
11. (27) Marco Andretti, Honda, 189.071
12. (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 188.966
13. (7) Mikhail Aleshin, Honda, 187.998
14. (98) Alexander Rossi, Honda, 186.939
15. (11) Sebastien Bourdais, Chevrolet, 186.544
16. (19) Luca Filippi, Honda, 185.814
17. (41) Jack Hawksworth, Honda, 185.046
18. (18) Conor Daly, Honda, 184.261
19. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 179.770
20. (14) Takuma Sato, Honda, no speed
21. (26) Carlos Munoz, Honda, no speed
22. (5) James Hinchcliffe, Honda, no speed
Discussion about this post