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Scott Dixon will start from pole position at Mid-Ohio tomorrow after surviving a late challenge from Will Power.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver looked a class apart in the final minutes of the Fast Six, breaking the lap record with each of his last two laps to settle on a time of 1m04.581s. The previous qualifying lap record of 1m05.347 stood for 15 years until the New Zealander carrved 0.766s from the former standard.
That second lap proved timely: less than a minute from the end of the session the Kiwi had a 0.4s advantage over the rest of the field, but a last-gasp improvement from Power whittled the final margin down to just 0.09s.
“On that [last] lap I messed up in Turn 12 and in 2, so there’s definitely more speed,” said Dixon. “We’re starting in the right position but as we saw last year anything can happen – we started 22nd and won last year, obviously with a pretty big break in strategy.”
Behind them, Sebastien Bourdais, Helio Castroneves, Josef Newgarden and Charlie Kimball combined for an all-Chevrolet first three rows.
Tony Kanaan might have been up there as well, but the Brazilian lost the tenth that he needed to make it into the Fast Six when he had a big moment at Turn 9 during his final run in round two.
It was a tough day for the two main championship protagonists. Juan Pablo Montoya was unable to summon the speed to progress from the second round, while Graham Rahal was a casualty of the first round when he was blocked by Ganassi rookie Sage Karam during what would have been his fastest lap.
LEXINGTON, OHIO – Qualifying Saturday for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Verizon IndyCar Series event on the 2.258-mile(s) Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, with qualifying position, car number in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine, time and speed in parentheses:
1. (9) Scott Dixon, Chevrolet, 01:04.5814 (125.869)
2. (1) Will Power, Chevrolet, 01:04.6782 (125.681)
3. (11) Sebastien Bourdais, Chevrolet, 01:04.9965 (125.065)
4. (3) Helio Castroneves, Chevrolet, 01:05.0625 (124.938)
5. (67) Josef Newgarden, Chevrolet, 01:05.0728 (124.919)
6. (83) Charlie Kimball, Chevrolet, 01:05.0784 (124.908)
7. (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Honda, 01:05.0455 (124.971)
8. (10) Tony Kanaan, Chevrolet, 01:05.0647 (124.934)
9. (20) Luca Filippi, Chevrolet, 01:05.1616 (124.748)
10. (2) Juan Pablo Montoya, Chevrolet, 01:05.2081 (124.659)
11. (41) Jack Hawksworth, Honda, 01:05.2291 (124.619)
12. (27) Marco Andretti, Honda, 01:05.3931 (124.307)
13. (15) Graham Rahal, Honda, 01:05.9650 (123.229)
14. (25) Justin Wilson, Honda, 01:05.5886 (123.936)
15. (22) Simon Pagenaud, Chevrolet, 01:05.9877 (123.187)
16. (14) Takuma Sato, Honda, 01:05.5933 (123.927)
17. (7) James Jakes, Honda, 01:06.0671 (123.039)
18. (4) Stefano Coletti, Chevrolet, 01:05.6204 (123.876)
19. (8) Sage Karam, Chevrolet, 01:06.0688 (123.035)
20. (5) Ryan Briscoe, Honda, 01:05.7053 (123.716)
21. (98) Gabby Chaves, Honda, 01:06.2195 (122.755)
22. (18) Rodolfo Gonzalez, Honda, 01:05.9698 (123.220)
23. (26) Carlos Munoz, Honda, 01:06.9891 (121.345)
24. (19) Tristan Vautier, Honda, 01:06.0814 (123.012)
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