Helio Castroneves has taken a back seat to Team Penske teammate Will Power thus far this season, but on the final day of practice before Saturday's Pole Day qualifying at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Brazilian rose to the fore. Castroneves' fast lap of 228.611mph marked him as a prime candidate to earn a record third consecutive Indianapolis 500 pole start.

“It's difficult to have a clean lap because we have 40 cars, which is very impressive,” said Castroneves, who will also be out to tie the all-time record of four Indy 500 wins on race day. “All my experience here, I never had this type of a scenario that we have so many cars around the track, which shows the series is getting stronger every year. It's going to be fun and I can't wait to go out there…and hopefully good numbers will be good enough for tomorrow.”

Eight different teams were represented in the top 10 on Friday, and the whole field was separated by just 1.0729sec. Alex Tagliani (228.327) remained strong in the No. 77 Bowers & Wilkins car for Sam Schmidt Motorsports turning the second-fastest lap of the day, while Scott Dixon in the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing car was third (228.181). Ryan Briscoe, driving the No. 6 IZOD Team Penske car, was fourth (228.029) and Bertrand Baguette surprised by cracking the top five (228.028) in his No. 30 RACB/Aspria Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry.

“The competition is tight as it's ever been,” said Roger Penske, who has collected 15 Indy 500 titles as a team owner. “And I think that the new qualifying format with the Fast Nine and then going for the pole will be very exciting.”


Tagliani reckons he can find some more speed for the pole fight, but suspects he will get pushed back by the other Penske and Ganassi drivers come qualifying.

"We have a couple of things left. I think we were conservative this afternoon," he said. "We made some changes on the car without pushing the limits aerodynamically. I think it's going be very difficult to do a 228.3mph, but it will have to be up there for a one-lap go. It's all about how consistent you can be and what's your draw.

"We feel that we are strong, but on the charts, there are a lot of cars that are strong. It's very difficult to have a good read. We ran very few laps this week, and we tried to run by ourselves to evaluate the right gearing and right downforce and make the right call on ride heights and all of that.

The top 24 spots in the 33-car field will be available through traditional four-lap attempts from 11 a.m.-4 p.m on Saturday. Each car will have up to three attempts, and bumping begins when the 24 spots are filled. The times of the top nine drivers from this first segment of qualifying will be erased at 4 p.m., with all of those competitors guaranteed to start no worse than ninth.

From 4:30-6 p.m., the Fast Nine will be required to make at least one four-lap qualifying attempt. They will receive an extra set of fresh tires. Additional, optional attempts are available if time permits. Each driver's best run during the 90-minute session will set their position within the top nine spots on the starting grid.



Pos  Driver              Team                     Time      Gap
 1.  Helio Castroneves   Penske                   39.3682s
 2.  Alex Tagliani       Sam Schmidt              39.4172s  + 0.0490s
 3.  Scott Dixon         Ganassi                  39.4424s  + 0.0742s
 4.  Ryan Briscoe        Penske                   39.4686s  + 0.1004s
 5.  Bertrand Baguette   Rahal Letterman Lanigan  39.4688s  + 0.1006s
 6.  Ed Carpenter        Sarah Fisher             39.4707s  + 0.1025s
 7.  Will Power          Penske                   39.4810s  + 0.1128s
 8.  Townsend Bell       Sam Schmidt              39.4864s  + 0.1182s
 9.  Oriol Servia        Newman/Haas              39.5465s  + 0.1783s
10.  Dan Wheldon         Herta                    39.5669s  + 0.1987s
11.  Dario Franchitti    Ganassi                  39.5722s  + 0.2040s
12.  Takuma Sato         KV                       39.6382s  + 0.2700s
13.  Vitor Meira         Foyt                     39.6487s  + 0.2805s
14.  JR Hildebrand       Panther                  39.6582s  + 0.2900s
15.  Marco Andretti      Andretti                 39.6737s  + 0.3055s
16.  James Hinchcliffe   Newman/Haas              39.6743s  + 0.3061s
17.  Graham Rahal        Ganassi                  39.6842s  + 0.3160s
18.  Charlie Kimball     Ganassi                  39.7374s  + 0.3692s
19.  Buddy Rice          Panther                  39.7465s  + 0.3813s
20.  Justin Wilson       Dreyer & Reinbold        39.8010s  + 0.4328s
21.  Alex Lloyd          Dale Coyne               39.8024s  + 0.4342s
22.  Danica Patrick      Andretti                 39.8212s  + 0.4530s
23.  Paul Tracy          Dreyer & Reinbold        39.8238s  + 0.4556s
24.  Davey Hamilton      Dreyer & Reinbold        39.8707s  + 0.5025s
25.  Tony Kanaan         KV                       39.8747s  + 0.5065s
26.  Ho-Pin Tung         Schmidt/Dragon           39.9106s  + 0.5424s
27.  Pippa Mann          Conquest                 39.9234s  + 0.5552s
28.  EJ Viso             KV                       39.9280s  + 0.5598s
29.  Bruno Junqueira     Foyt                     39.9298s  + 0.5616s
30.  Jay Howard          Rahal/Schmidt            39.9361s  + 0.5679s
31.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    Andretti                 39.9637s  + 0.5955s
32.  Tomas Scheckter     KV/SH                    39.9749s  + 0.6067s
33.  John Andretti       Petty/Andretti           40.0159s  + 0.6477s
34.  Ana Beatriz         Dreyer & Reinbold        40.0259s  + 0.6577s
35.  Raphael Matos       AFS                      40.1106s  + 0.7424s
36.  Mike Conway         Andretti                 40.2577s  + 0.8895s
37.  James Jakes         Dale Coyne               40.2871s  + 0.9189s
38.  Sebastian Saavedra  Conquest                 40.3721s  + 1.0039s
39.  Scott Speed         Dragon                   40.4411s  + 1.0729s