Changes to the Penske brought Helio the Pole

Helio Castroneves took his second straight Pole on the way to what he hopes will be his second straight victory at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan.

The Penske driver turned a lap of 26.6416 seconds (205.393mph) around the 1.5 mile oval to eclipse Dan Wheldon's best lap by 0.0328 of a second. This means the winners of the past three races will share the front row in Saturday's IndyJapan 300.

“I want to thank my engineer, Ron Ruzewski, he did an incredible job,” said Castroneves. “A last minute touch from practice this morning to qualifying (this afternoon). Without those changes for sure we would not be sitting here.”

By contrast, Wheldon was less than happy with his second placing run, saying, “I didn't quite get the best out of my car, I'm a little disappointed about that.”

Wheldon's Ganassi team-mate, Scott Dixon, had gone out earlier and also had mixed feelings about his merely sixth quick qualifying run.

“We've been struggling most of the day, yesterday as well, just with the rear end,” said Dixon who has never finished better than fifth at Motegi. “But we've been working on it. To be honest, in qualifying it was flat - easy! Little disappointed in myself I think for not trying that earlier on in the weekend, then maybe we could have trimmed it out a bit and gained a few more spots. I think we could just about race what we qualified - I was that comfortable with the car.”

Andretti Green team-mates Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick qualified third and fourth and both thought they could have been better and now look toward race day.

“I anticipate to have a good race, I click really well with this track, I feel good on it, and I've had good races here in the past,” said Danica who finished fourth here in 2005 - her rookie season. “I think we'll be okay, but I really thought we had the fastest car today. But, that's alright, the Motorola car will just start from a little farther back and work it's way forward.”

Said Kanaan, “I thought it could have been a little quicker, but my expectations are always higher than what I can really do.” Kanaan went on to say that his team has ‘raced well here in the past,' and he firmly expected they would do the same thing on Saturday.

With no final warm-up scheduled, the next on track activity will be the IndyJapan 300 starting at 1:00pm local time.

Motegi Qualifying Times
Pos Driver Diff Best Time Best Speed

1 Helio Castroneves (3) ... 26.6416 205.393
2 Dan Wheldon (10) 0.0328 26.6744 205.141
3 Tony Kanaan (11) 0.0801 26.7217 204.777
4 Danica Patrick (7) 0.1465 26.7881 204.270
5 Sam Hornish Jr (6) 0.2079 26.8495 203.803
6 Scott Dixon (9) 0.2145 26.8561 203.753
7 Dario Franchitti (27) 0.2184 26.8600 203.723
8 Tomas Scheckter (2) 0.2357 26.8773 203.592
9 Kosuke Matsuura (55) 0.2958 26.9374 203.138
10 Marco Andretti (26) 0.2970 26.9386 203.129
11 Buddy Rice (15) 0.3529 26.9945 202.708
12 Scott Sharp (8) 0.3619 27.0035 202.640
13 Vitor Meira (4T) 0.4107 27.0523 202.275
14 AJ Foyt IV (22) 0.4341 27.0757 202.100
15 Sarah Fisher (5) 0.4648 27.1064 201.871
16 Ed Carpenter (20) 0.4959 27.1375 201.640
17 Jeff Simmons (17) 0.7759 27.4175 199.581
18 Darren Manning (14) 0.7925 27.4341 199.460

ORS / CAPSIS International