Ryan Hunter-Reay did everything possible in Saturday's qualifying for the 11th round of the 2012 IndyCar season to ensure the best chance at his fourth straight win. Despite a 10-spot grid penalty looming for an unapproved engine change after his Toronto win, Hunter-Reay used scuffed Firestone reds to score his first pole of the season, second of his IndyCar career (Milwaukee 2004, flag-to-flag victory).

“The track was constantly changing, and it was fully wet before the track started drying,” he said. “It was hard to come to the decision to go to with used reds. We thought originally, ‘Let's go for 13th or 14th.' Instead we went and got the pole which is awesome, a double bonus. It was pretty hairy.”

The penalty promotes Dario Franchitti to pole position. Ironically, it's the second time this year Franchitti has inherited a pole position when a Chevrolet driver named Ryan incurred a 10-spot grid penalty despite qualifying P1 – Ryan Briscoe performed the feat at Long Beach. Hunter-Reay gets the point, and almost was thankful Franchitti was the beneficiary as the Scotsman has qualified on pole in each of the last three races.

A mistake on his last flying lap cost Franchitti a shot at the outright pole.

“It was raining in Turn 1 again, and it seems here that's first place rain comes,” said Franchitti. “And offf I went. Every time I've started from the pole, he's won, and now he gets the point for pole! Hopefully, there's more predictable conditions tomorrow.”

Rain interrupted the full qualifying session after a dry Q1, then wet Q2. The conditions lighted by the time Q3 occurred with Hunter-Reay, Franchitti, two Team Penske drivers (Briscoe, Helio Castroneves), and Honda runners Alex Tagliani and Takuma Sato in the Firestone Fast Six.

Briscoe made it to third by the end of Q3 ahead of 2011 Edmonton polesitter Sato, Tagliani and Castroneves. It's Tagliani's third straight Firestone Fast Six appearance for the single-car Team Barracuda-BHA and Sato's best start of the season.

Seventh and eliminated after Q2 was Will Power, in dire need of a strong result with only one top-five finish since his win at Brazil in April.

“Everyone went out on wets, and the track was kinda sprinkled with water,” said Power. “The last lap was the quickest chance, and I made a mistake in (Turn) 1. It was foolish of me not to know that. We gotta have a good day. It's been bad day after bad day after bad day.”

Power, who's still won this year from ninth and 12th on the grid, was set to line up sixth with Hunter-Reay's grid penalty taken into effect. Another of the title contenders, Scott Dixon, who qualified eighth, will take a 10-spot grid penalty for utilizing a sixth fresh engine.

After qualifying, however, Penske Racing president and Power's race strategist Tim Cindric confirmed Power, too, will take a 10-spot grid penalty to update to the latest Chevrolet engine specification.

"Taking 10 grid penalty with @12WillPower 2 get latest spec.With 9 and 28 taking penaties,we don't give up much.Just need a good start + luck," Cindric wrote on Twitter slightly before 5:30 p.m. Eastern.

Simon Pagenaud, Rubens Barrichello, Graham Rahal and James Hinchcliffe were set round out the top 10. Justin Wilson narrowly missed advancing out of his group in Q1 but will now move up to tenth.

Panther Racing/DRR teammates JR Hildebrand and Oriol Servia have each hit their mileage limit and will be able to change to a fresh Chevrolet engine without penalty, and Marco Andretti was 10 laps away from hitting a mileage limit on his Chevrolet prior to qualifying as well. Andretti could change engines without penalty if he too hit that mileage limit.

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                   Time        Gap
 1.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m17.2338s
 2.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m17.2446s  + 0.0108s
 3.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m17.4238s  + 0.1900s
 4.  Takuma Sato          Rahal Dallara-Honda        1m17.5526s  + 0.3188s
 5.  Alex Tagliani        Herta Dallara-Honda        1m17.6139s  + 0.3801s
 6.  Helio Castroneves    Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m17.6401s  + 0.4063s
 7.  Will Power           Penske Dallara-Chevy       1m27.5666s  Round 2
 8.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m27.7001s  Round 2
 9.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt Dallara-Honda      1m27.8410s  Round 2
10.  Rubens Barrichello   KV Dallara-Chevy           1m28.2521s  Round 2
11.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m28.6737s  Round 2
12.  James Hinchcliffe    Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m28.7409s  Round 2
13.  Justin Wilson        Coyne Dallara-Honda        1m16.6190s  Group 1
14.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dragon Dallara-Chevy       1m16.9747s  Group 2
15.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher Dallara-Honda       1m16.7533s  Group 1
16.  James Jakes          Coyne Dallara-Honda        1m16.9900s  Group 2
17.  Marco Andretti       Andretti Dallara-Chevy     1m16.9881s  Group 1
18.  EJ Viso              KV Dallara-Chevy           1m16.9920s  Group 2
19.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi Dallara-Honda      1m17.0078s  Group 1
20.  Oriol Servia         Panther/DRR Dallara-Chevy  1m17.3906s  Group 2
21.  JR Hildebrand        Panther Dallara-Chevy      1m17.5285s  Group 1
22.  Tony Kanaan          KV Dallara-Chevy           1m17.5441s  Group 2
23.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM Dallara-Lotus          1m17.9789s  Group 1
24.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter Dallara-Chevy    1m17.6918s  Group 2
25.  Mike Conway          Foyt Dallara-Honda         1m18.8781s  Group 2