Australian driver Will Power has stolen a vital bonus point from his team-mate Helio Castroneves by claiming pole for the season-ending IndyCar race at Fontana in California.
Power beat Castroneves to the top spot with AJ Allmendinger in third position in the third Chevrolet-powered Team Penske machine.
Castroneves goes into the meeting 25-points in arrears of Kiwi Scott Dixon who turned the seventh quickest lap at the Auto Club Speedway.
Power had earlier topped the practice session at the superspeedway track.
Sebastien Bourdais was fourth fastest in the Dragon, giving the top four spots to Chevy-powered Dallaras.
“It’s hard to predict the lap you’re going to do anyway, but obviously it would have been nice for Helio to get the point,” Power acknowledged.
Power hinted though that he would do whatever it takes to help Castroneves in the 250-lap race.
“He needs to lead the most laps and I’ll just do whatever I can to help him out.”
Crucially both Castroneves and Dixon will drop 10 grid spots from their qualifying positions for engine changes to their respective machines.
Coverage of the 250-lap race starts tomorrow on Speed Channel at 11am AEDT.
See below for full qualifying results
| 1 | Will Power | Penske-Chevy | 220.775mph |
| 2 | Helio Castroneves | Penske-Chevy | 219.677* |
| 3 | AJ Allmendinger | Penske-Chevy | 218.894 |
| 4 | Sebastien Bourdais | Dragon-Chevy | 218.513 |
| 5 | Charlie Kimball | Ganassi-Honda | 217.986 |
| 6 | James Jakes | Rahal-Honda | 217.979 |
| 7 | Scott Dixon | Ganassi-Honda | 217.979* |
| 8 | Marco Andretti | Andretti-Chevy | 217.958 |
| 9 | Ed Carpenter | Carpenter-Chevy | 217.932 |
| 10 | Josef Newgarden | Fisher-Honda | 217.871* |
| 11 | James Hinchcliffe | Andretti-Chevy | 217.798 |
| 12 | Tony Kanaan | KV-Chevy | 217.566 |
| 13 | Alex Tagliani | Ganassi-Honda | 217.419 |
| 14 | Carlos Munoz | Andretti-Chevy | 217.050 |
| 15 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | Andretti-Chevy | 216.898 |
| 16 | Simon Pagenaud | Schmidt/Honda | 216.447 |
| 17 | Oriol Servia | Panther-Chevy | 216.213 |
| 18 | Graham Rahal | Rahal-Honda | 216.106* |
| 19 | JR Hildebrand | Herta-Honda | 215.967 |
| 20 | Tristan Vautier | Schmidt-Honda | 215.207 |
| 21 | Simona de Silvestro | KV-Chevy | 214.679 |
| 22 | Sebastian Saavedra | Dragon-Chevy | 213.262* |
*Receive 10-place grid penalty
