Franchitti on Pole for Firestone Indy 400

Franchitti, who takes a 24-point lead over Dixon into the noon (ET) race, set the pace with a quick lap of 218.308 mph (32.9810 seconds) in securing the AAMCO Transmissions Pole Award.

Photo courtesy: Indycar.com

BROOKLYN, Mich. - There will be five cars between points leader Dario Franchitti's pole-winning No. 27 Canadian Club entry and that of his closest pursuer, Scott Dixon, at the start of the Firestone Indy 400.

That's comforting in one respect. But Franchitti won't have any Andretti Green Racing teammates as wingmen at the start of the 200-lap speedfest at Michigan International Speedway, and his highest finish at the track is eighth. Still, season-long consistency has Franchitti confident in the Honda-powered Dallara.

"We had two and a half hours of practice," Franchitti said, referencing the high-banked oval. "About 2 hours, 25 minutes was race setup and five minutes was qualifying. It was actually so short we did sort of a half-qualifying sim. I'm feeling quite good about my race car."

Franchitti, who takes a 24-point lead over Dixon into the noon (ET) race, set the pace with a quick lap of 218.308 mph (32.9810 seconds) in securing the AAMCO Transmissions Pole Award.

Dixon, who is seeking an IndyCar Series-record fourth consecutive victory in the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing entry, is starting seventh (217.369; 33.1234 seconds). In between are drivers representing four teams.

The Firestone Indy 400 is the 13th of 17 rounds, with the final four events split between 1.5-mile ovals and street/road courses.

"We've got to do the best that we can week in and week out and look after things we can control," said Franchitti, who waited out 15 qualifiers seeking to knock him off the perch. "I can't control what Scott does. I can't control if he's going to win the race or he's going to crash or he's going to have a mechanical. I've got to focus on my thing, and everybody on the Canadian Club team has to do our best week in and week out and see what we end up with.

"Today was a good example of that. They gave me a heck of a car and allowed us to stick it on the pole. It was a bit nerve-racking there at the end. We'll see if we can keep it up front."

Maybe the fact that three of the five IndyCar Series winners at MIS have started from the pole, including Helio Castroneves last year, will augment his confidence.

Franchitti is seeking to become the seventh driver (since the first Indy car racing event at MIS in 1968) to win the Indianapolis 500 and the race at MIS in the same season.

Dixon appears unfazed by his starting position.

"I'm not sure how much your starting position matters here as long as you are in the top 10 really," said Dixon, whose best finish at MIS is fifth in his 2003 title season. "People have come from even further back to win this race. You can definitely pass if you have a good car.

"This is probably the most difficult track to try to (set the record) and I have not had the best of luck here to be honest. But it certainly would be nice to continue the streak. What is most important would be to finish ahead of Dario Franchitti for the points race."

Sam Hornish Jr. (218.0239) in the No. 6 Team Penske car will start on the front row for the second consecutive year, while his teammate, Castroneves (217.894), will share Row 2 with Scott Sharp (217.631) in the No. 8 Patron Rahal Letterman Racing car.

"It's not quite what we wanted," Hornish said. "The Team Penske guys and I made a decision between the first and second practices to make a couple of pretty big changes with the car. We didn't think it hurt the car that much, but running through the second practice we couldn't find the speed we wanted. We missed on the gears a little bit (in qualifying), but we found the speed that we need for tomorrow so I guess it's a good thing we did our experiment for qualifying. We feel it will make our race car better for tomorrow."

Dan Wheldon (217.448) in the No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing car and Tomas Scheckter (217.434) in the No. 2 Vision Racing entry will be on Row 3. Dixon will be on the fourth row with Tony Kanaan (217.192) in the No. 11 Team 7-Eleven car for Andretti Green Racing.

Sharp is the only IndyCar Series driver to have completed every lap in the five previous races, earning five top-10 finishes. His qualifications run was almost 2 mph faster than any of his practice laps.

"I really didn't expect us to be that fast but my engineer Jeff (Britton) and the guys did a great job, found a great balance on the car and we turned in a great lap," said Sharp, who posted his best qualifying result at MIS. "We worked on our race setup in the practice sessions, so I don't think we really knew what we had in qualifying. But to put in a lap like that shows what this team is capable of. You always want to run your best lap in qualifying and that's what we did."

Story by: Dave Lewandowski

Courtesy: indycar.com

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