Heat, humidity and marbles left over from the IndyCar support series made the luck of the qualifying draw incredibly important, but at the end of today's qualifying session for Saturday night's race on the .75 mile Richmond oval, the four entries from Ganassi and Penske found their usual place atop the timesheets.
With two wins and now two pole, the 2007 IndyCar Series champion is making all the right moves at the moment. (Getty) ยป More Photos
Penske's Ryan Briscoe set the first meaningful average of 165.749 represented the first set of mostly flat laps of the hour-long session. The Aussie's pole speed was topped by Scott Dixon whose 166.638 average withstood an oversteering attack from Helio Castroneves. The Brazilian, seen making wild corrections in turn two and turn four, had to settle for the third fastest average speed of 165.931.
If Castroneves caught people's attention with his breathtaking saves, polesitter Dario Franchitti stunned his rivals with an average speed that was simply untouchable. The Scot's 167.315 average also featured the only lap above 168mph -- 168.160 on lap three -- to put an exclamation point on the run. "I'll be honest," he said. "That was four laps on the limit. I had oversteer, understeer, and just held on and tried to keep my foot planted. Me and Dixie are in a good place and we'll have to play it smart in the race tomorrow with our Target cars."
Graham Rahal rebounded from an anonymous weekend at Iowa to put his McDonald's car fifth, followed by the top rookie, Luczo Dragon's Rafa Matos. The black cloud following E.J. Viso gave the Venezuelan a day off as the accident-prone IndyCar sophomore placed his PDVSA Dallara in seventh. Viso just edged AGR's Hideki Mutoh, as the Japanese driver held onto his momentum from last weekend to grab eighth, the top performance within his team. Mutoh's teammates Danica Patrick (tenth), Marco Andretti (sixteenth) and Tony Kanaan (seventeenth) have a long race ahead of them.
Dreyer & Reinbold's Tomas Scheckter continued to boost the team's efforts by placing his MonaVie Dallara ninth with an average of 164.441. He was followed closely by rookie teammate Mike Conway in eleventh.
Newman/Haas/Lanigan's Robert Doornbos adapted quickly to the crazy oval, taking twelfth ahead of a disappointed Dan Wheldon in thirteenth and Ed Carpenter in fourteenth.
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Justin Wilson's four laps were mixed with the first and third slow and the second and fourth significantly faster. The Briton's effort were only good enough for fifteenth. Ryan Hunter-Reay's handling was nothing like he enjoyed at Iowa, settling for an underwhelming eighteenth place qualifying run.
KV Racing's Mario Moraes drew the short straw in qualifying and his speed showed the effects of being the first out to qualify. While he improved throughout the run, it was clear the young Brazilian was unsure of the amount of grip that awaited him at each corner. His 160.895mph average left him in nineteenth.
The final qualifier was Jaques Lazier, polesitter in 2001 with Sam Schmidt Motorsports on the Series' first appearance at the track. Lazier could only extract fast laps some 1.5 seconds off Franchitti's best. At that pace, Lazier will be lapped thirty times when round 8 gets underway Saturday night at 8:45pm ET.
RICHMOND, Va. - Qualifying Friday for the SunTrust Indy Challenge IndyCar Series event on the .75-mile Richmond International Raceway, with starting position, car number in parentheses, driver, chassis-engine and speed:
1. (10) Dario Franchitti, Dallara-Honda, 167.315
2. (9) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Honda, 166.638
3. (3) Helio Castroneves, Dallara-Honda, 165.931
4. (6) Ryan Briscoe, Dallara-Honda, 165.749
5. (02) Graham Rahal, Dallara-Honda, 165.218
6. (2) Raphael Matos, Dallara-Honda, 164.928
7. (13) E.J. Viso, Dallara-Honda, 164.629
8. (27) Hideki Mutoh, Dallara-Honda, 164.575
9. (23) Tomas Scheckter, Dallara-Honda, 164.441
10. (7) Danica Patrick, Dallara-Honda, 164.197
11. (24) Mike Conway, Dallara-Honda, 164.129
12. (06) Robert Doornbos, Dallara-Honda, 164.071
13. (4) Dan Wheldon, Dallara-Honda, 163.843
14. (20) Ed Carpenter, Dallara-Honda, 163.824
15. (18) Justin Wilson, Dallara-Honda, 163.506
16. (26) Marco Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 162.780
17. (11) Tony Kanaan, Dallara-Honda, 162.634
18. (14) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Dallara-Honda, 162.506
19. (5) Mario Moraes, Dallara-Honda, 160.895
20. (98) Jaques Lazier, Dallara-Honda, 153.176
