IRL Iowa Qualifying Determined By Rain *SPOILER*

(thanks to autosport)

Scott Dixon will start from pole position for the IRL IndyCar Series race at Iowa after rain forced the cancellation of qualifying.

Poor weather had already caused yesterday's test to be truncated, and although practice and the Indy Lights support race were successfully completed on a dry track today, a shower then struck after two of the 24 competitors had completed their four-lap qualifying runs.

That ultimately led to the session being abandoned completely, with the grid to be formed based on entrants' championship positions.

That will be a boost for points leader Dixon and his Ganassi team, as the 2003 champion had struggled for speed so far in the Iowa weekend, and was only 12th fastest in final practice, but will now start from pole for the fifth time in eight races this year.

Penske's Helio Castroneves will join Dixon on the front row, ahead of Dan Wheldon (Ganassi) and Tony Kanaan (Andretti Green).

Practice pace-setters Ryan Briscoe (Penske) and Hideki Mutoh (Andretti Green) will take the start from fifth and seventh respectively, split by AGR's Danica Patrick.

With Bruno Junqueira's Dale Coyne Racing entry and Marty Roth's car having both severely damaged in morning practice crashes, 24 drivers are now set to compete on Sunday afternoon.


Provisional starting order:

Pos Driver Team
1. Scott Dixon Ganassi
2. Helio Castroneves Penske
3. Dan Wheldon Ganassi
4. Tony Kanaan Andretti Green
5. Ryan Briscoe Penske
6. Danica Patrick Andretti Green
7. Hideki Mutoh Andretti Green
8. Marco Andretti Andretti Green
9. Ed Carpenter Vision
10. Oriol Servia KV
11. Will Power KV
12. Vitor Meira Panther
13. EJ Viso HVM
14. Ryan Hunter-Reay Rahal Letterman
15. Buddy Rice Dreyer & Reinbold
16. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan
17. Enrique Bernoldi Conquest
18. AJ Foyt IV Vision
19. Darren Manning Foyt
20. Justin Wilson Newman/Haas/Lanigan
21. Jaime Camara Conquest
22. Milka Duno Dreyer & Reinbold
23. John Andretti Roth
24. Mario Moraes Dale Coyne

 

(This is a better idea of how the cars ran in race trim, qualifying being a "gimmee". What is Milka doing on the track?)

Penske's Ryan Briscoe topped the final free practice session before qualifying for the IRL IndyCar Series race at Iowa Speedway.

The Australian driver was the fastest in the first of the two groups to run during this split session, which - like morning practice - was stretched to two hours to provide the teams with the mileage they had missed out on when rain curtailed Friday's pre-race test.

First practice pace-setter Hideki Mutoh was a strong contender again as he took second place for Andretti-Green Racing, just 0.0529 seconds behind Briscoe. The Japanese rookie's morning lap remains the best of the weekend so far.

Mutoh's teammate Tony Kanaan was fastest in the second group and took third, a mere 0.0003 seconds away from second, while Danica Patrick put a third AGR car in the top five by taking fifth behind Briscoe's Penske teammate Helio Castroneves.

Ganassi only managed sixth for Dan Wheldon, who was running his back-up car after his involvement in Bruno Junqueira's morning crash, and 12th for points leader Scott Dixon, as the latter struggled to perfect his set-up on the short but very fast track.

Rahal Letterman Racing's Ryan Hunter-Reay and AJ Foyt Racing's Darren Manning showed promising speed as they took seventh and eighth. Marco Andretti (AGR) and Ed Carpenter (Vision) completed the top ten, ahead of an impressive performance from Dale Coyne's rookie Mario Moraes in 11th.

The afternoon session passed without incident and saw no repeat of the morning's crashes.

But the early accidents have left the field somewhat depleted, with both Junqueira (Dale Coyne Racing) and Marty Roth (Roth Racing) ruled out for the weekend due to the damage sustained in their earlier crashes, which their teams believe were caused by mechanical problems rather than driver errors.

With Pacific Coast Motorsport having withdrawn Mario Dominguez from the event earlier in the week, that leaves a 24-car field to participate in this afternoon's qualifying session.

Pos Driver Team Time
1. Ryan Briscoe Penske 17.4206
2. Hideki Mutoh Andretti Green 17.4735 + 0.0529
3. Tony Kanaan Andretti Green 17.4738 + 0.0532
4. Helio Castroneves Penske 17.4812 + 0.0606
5. Danica Patrick Andretti Green 17.5068 + 0.0862
6. Dan Wheldon Ganassi 17.5230 + 0.1024
7. Ryan Hunter-Reay Rahal Letterman 17.5759 + 0.1553
8. Darren Manning Foyt 17.5838 + 0.1632
9. Marco Andretti Andretti Green 17.5852 + 0.1646
10. Ed Carpenter Vision 17.5884 + 0.1678
11. Mario Moraes Dale Coyne 17.5913 + 0.1707
12. Scott Dixon Ganassi 17.5937 + 0.1731
13. Vitor Meira Panther 17.5969 + 0.1763
14. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan 17.6119 + 0.1913
15. Will Power KV 17.6156 + 0.1950
16. John Andretti Roth 17.6457 + 0.2251
17. Buddy Rice Dreyer & Reinbold 17.6461 + 0.2255
18. Oriol Servia KV 17.6565 + 0.2359
19. EJ Viso HVM 17.6642 + 0.2436
20. Enrique Bernoldi Conquest 17.7282 + 0.3076
21. Jamie Camara Conquest 17.7956 + 0.3750
22. Justin Wilson Newman/Haas/Lanigan 17.8227 + 0.4021
23. AJ Foyt IV Vision 17.8358 + 0.4152
24. Milka Duno Dreyer & Reinbold 18.2930 + 0.8724