Team Penske's Ryan Briscoe will start from the pole position for the IndyCar season finale at Chicagoland. Points leader Scott Dixon – quickest in all practice sessions - had topped most of the session with a four lap average of 215.553 mph, but Briscoe – who was the last driver to run - eventually beat the Australian with an average of 215.818 mph.
Danica Patrick lead the AGR effort in third place. She was originally set to share the second row with Helio Castroneves, but the story of the day is that the Brazilian possibly saw his title ambitions vanish, as he got disqualified from fourth position for dropping under the white line onto the apron several times during his run, which was explicitly said to be prohibited during the drivers' meeting. Tony Kanaan will now join his team-mate on row two, with the third AGR car of Marco Andretti being joined by Dan Wheldon on row three.
Part-timer Tomas Scheckter did well to qualify in seventh, ahead of Vitor Meira who will probably make his last start for Panther. For next season, Meira is set to be replaced by Dan Wheldon – who in turn is being replaced by 2007 champion Dario Franchitti. It is widely believed that Wheldon will already get a seat in the no. 4 car for the non-points race in Australia next month, to jump start his career at his new team.
An other notable result is Marty Roth's ninth place, who posts his second-best qualifying result of the year. The 49-year-old Canadian faced a lot of criticism after significantly lagging behind on the road courses, but showed some good form this weekend on the 1.5 mile oval. KV's Will Power completes the top ten as best rookie, while last week winner Justin Wilson is down in 21st position after struggling with his NHL Dallara-Honda.
Helio Castroneves now has a mountain to climb to match his title ambitions, starting in 28th and last position. He needs a win by leading the most laps with Scott Dixon finishing lower than eight to snatch the title away from the Kiwi.
The Chicagoland race is scheduled at 3:30 pm local time (ET) and 8:30 pm GMT.
Written by Filip Cleeren
Written: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:23:50
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