Title contenders Power, Franchitti qualify up front
After conquering the track that nearly killed him last season, Ryan Briscoe will look to claim a second straight IZOD IndyCar Series victory at Chicagoland Speedway (Sat., 7 p.m. ET, Versus) from the pole position.
The Sydney, Australian native topped the charts during this afternoon’s qualifying session with a two-lap average of 216.346 m.p.h., earning him his third pole of 2010. He’ll look to be a contender for victory tomorrow night or at least try to help Team Penske teammate Will Power, who’s trying to shake Dario Franchitti in the final stages of their championship battle.
Franchitti, who sits second in the standings at 59 points back of Power, will start alongside Briscoe on the front row after posting an average of 215.593 m.p.h. But right behind him will be Power (215.521) starting third, which lines him up with another Team Penske teammate, Helio Castroneves (215.475), in the second row.
As for Franchitti’s potential help in Target Chip Ganassi Racing buddy Scott Dixon, the New Zealander will have to work his way up the pylon from the 15th starting position.
Marco Andretti and Graham Rahal claimed the third row, followed by Dan Wheldon and Hideki Mutoh in Row 4 and Ryan Hunter-Reay and Takuma Sato in Row 5.
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Quotes from the top three
6-Ryan Briscoe, Team Penske
“The car today was just spot on. I didn’t want to be overconfident but I was thinking after that run, ‘Man, that’s gotta be hard to beat.’ I knew we were fully trimmed out and the car felt really solid. It was a great qualifying run today and I’m just really hoping that we can follow through tomorrow and have another good race. We’ve been strong here the last couple of years and I really enjoy racing around here. It’s always exciting. It’s a completely wide track that’s really smooth. It’s got smooth transitions off the banking corners. It really promotes good racing so I always get excited to come back here.”
10-Dario Franchitti, Target Chip Ganassi Racing (2nd in championship, 59 points behind Will Power)
“Qualifying is a like an engineering exercise. It’s getting all of those pieces into place and then if you miss one of them, or in Ryan’s case, if you get them all just right, then you see the result. We’d like to have that extra point (for the pole) but we’re starting up front and I think we have a pretty good car in race trim. One of the things we realize about these one-and-a-half mile [oval] races is really that anything can happen. It can just go completely bad at anytime. It would be nice to stay up front all night, but we’re prepared for almost anything.”
12-Will Power, Team Penske (championship leader)
“The Verizon car felt really solid out there today. Our car is fast in race trim and this track is all about the racing. I am looking forward to tomorrow night. We have been knocking on the door on some of the earlier oval races and we are due for our first oval win.”
