Josef Newgarden has denied Scott Dixon pole position for IndyCar’s Texas Motor Speedway season-opener by 0.1mph.

The Team Penske driver and Chip Ganassi Racing driver will share the front row for the 200-lapper later in the evening (local time) while Will Power qualified sixth.

Dixon had set the pace in practice and left a serious challenge for the two drivers still to come in qualifying when he clocked a two-lap average of 215.638mph (347.036km/h).

Simon Pagenaud came close but was slower on both of his qualifying laps, before his team-mate Newgarden went 215.796mph (347.290km/h) on his first lap and 215.685mph (341.111km/h) on his second, an average of 215.740mph (347.200km/h).

Across both laps of the 1.5mi (2.4km) oval, the American edged the Kiwi by 0.0228s with an aggregate time of 48.0578s.

Ryan Hunter-Reay recovered from a crash in the only practice session of the single-day meeting to put his Andretti Autosport entry into fourth position, next to Pagenaud.

Sharing Row 3 will be another Andretti driver in Zach Veach, alongside Power in the #12 Team Penske Chevrolet.

Rounding out the top 10 were Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing), Alexander Rossi (Andretti Autosport), Felix Rosenqvist (Chip Ganassi Racing), and Tony Kanaan (AJ Foyt Racing).

Takuma Sato crashed when he lost the rear of his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry through Turn 1 on his warm up lap, leaving his crew with a task to turn around Car #30 in little more than two hours.

The green flag is back out for #Genesy300 qualifying after this incident involving @TakumaSatoRacer

Watch: https://t.co/hkvqSOklzq#Genesys300 // #INDYCAR pic.twitter.com/QcyovNQkeJ

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) June 6, 2020

Race start is due at 10:10 AEST.