» Indy 500: Tagliani storms to shock pole

When Alex Tagliani claimed pole position for the centenary running of the Indianapolis 500, the form book was well and truly thrown out the window last weekend.

Our IndyCar correspondent Matt Lennon casts his watchful eye over the heroes – and zeroes – from a busy week that was affected by rain, heavy practice crashes, driver tantrums and plenty of surprises…

While rain remained a constant threat on Saturday, the heavens held strong during the first session. Strong gusty winds however were causing havoc for many drivers, especially between Turn 1 and 2. A later rain shower forced a delay to the Top-9 pole shootout.

At the end of the first session, it was the unfamiliar sight of Alex Tagliani heading the running order, with a four-lap average speed of 226.954mph. Toward the other end, Hélio Castroneves found himself clinging to a spot in the Top 24, while team-mate Ryan Briscoe was even further back, requiring a special effort to ensure his presence on race day.

The biggest surprise though came from the Andretti Autosports team, with Danica Patrick, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Mike Conway, Marco and John Andretti well off the pace. All five drivers were equally puzzled and frustrated at their apparent lack of speed.

As per traditional rules at Indy, each car was allowed three attempts at qualifying with each attempt consisting of a four-lap run, measured as an average speed. After the first session, the top nine cars participate in a single-effort shootout for the pole, with the results from this session finalising the first three rows for race day. The shootout was run with the ninth-fastest driver, Panther Racing’s Buddy Rice, going first, with Tagliani going last.

The shootout was to provide a shock in its own right as not one, but both Ganassi cars ran out of fuel on the final lap of their respective runs. Scott Dixon managed to cross the line with enough momentum to secure second place, while Dario Franchitti barely made it around Turn 1 on his fourth lap before his tank ran dry. The defending race winner will therefore start ninth.

A notable absentee from Saturday’s action was Scott Speed, who was unable to find a workable balance on his Dragon entry and did not take to the track. On Sunday morning it was announced the team had parted ways with Speed – there were suspicions he had thrown a not-out-of-character tantrum – and had drafted in former IndyCar and Champ Car frontrunner Patrick Carpentier. This was no more successful. During a shakedown lap, Carpentier crashed heavily, writing the car off, and the team subsequently withdrew its entry.

Another story involving another rookie was the first Chinese participant at Indy – Ho- Pin Tung. The promising youngster spun on the third lap of his first pole effort, hitting the wall on the outside of Turn 1 hard. After being checked at the infield care centre, Tung was awake and alert, but transferred by road to Methodist Hospital for further precautionary checks, with a concussion later reported to be the problem. As per IndyCar rules, any driver suffering a concussion is automatically ruled unfit to drive for a predetermined period if time which, in Tung’s case, prevented him from returning to the track for the remainder of the weekend and therefore unable to attempt to qualify.

All four ladies who attempted to qualify did so, with Simona de Silvestro, Danica Patrick, Pippa Mann and Ana Beatriz qualifying 23rd, 25th, 31st and 32nd respectively.

With a combined total age of 96 years, age showed no signs of slowing veterans John Andretti and Davey Hamilton down. Hamilton qualified an excellent 15th, while the elder Andretti, who debuted at Indy in 1988, will start a little further back in 17th.

In a late development, for the second time in three years, it has been announced that Bruno Junqueira will step out of his seat to make room for Ryan Hunter-Reay, in a last-minute deal struck between Andretti Autosports and AJ Foyt Racing. As per Indy rules, this is allowed, and Hunter-Reay will start from 33rd position.

The drivers who did not qualify for the race were Ho-Pin Tung, Patrick Carpentier, Mike Conway, Sebastian Saavedra, Raphael Matos and James Jakes all failed to qualify.

2011 Indianapolis 500 Qualifying Results:

No.	Driver	Entrant	Q1	‘Pole Day’	‘Bump Day’
1.	Alex Tagliani	Sam Schmidt	226.954mph	227.472mph
2.	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi	226.701mph	227.340mph
3.	Oriol Servià	Newman/Haas	225.775mph	227.168mph
4.	Townsend Bell	Sam Schmidt	226.277mph	226.887mph
5.	Will Power	Team Penske	226.089mph	226.773mph
6.	Dan Wheldon	Bryan Herta	226.300mph	226.490mph
7.	Buddy Rice	Panther Racing	225.746mph	225.786mph
8.	Ed Carpenter	Sarah Fisher	226.171mph	225.121mph
9.	Dario Franchitti	Chip Ganassi	226.379mph	no time
10.	Takuma Sato	KV Racing	225.736mph
11.	Vitor Meira	AJ Foyt Enterprises	225.590mph
12.	JR Hildebrand	Panther Racing	225.579mph
13.	James Hinchcliffe	Newman/Haas	225.572mph
14.	Bertrand Baguette	RLL	225.285mph
15.	Davey Hamilton	Dreyer & Reinbold	225.250mph
16.	Hélio Castroneves	Team Penske	225.216mph
17.	John Andretti	Richard Petty / Andretti	224.981mph
18.	E.J. Viso	KV Racing	224.732mph
19.	Bruno Junqueira	AJ Foyt	224.691mph
20.	Justin Wilson	Dreyer & Reinbold	224.511mph
21.	Jay Howard	Schmidt / RLL	224.483mph
22.	Tomas Scheckter	KV Racing	224.433mph
23.	Tony Kanaan	KV Racing	224.417mph
24.	Simona de Silvestro	HVM Racing	224.392mph
25.	Paul Tracy	Dreyer & Reinbold	224.353mph		224.939mph
26.	Danica Patrick	Andretti Autosport	223.831mph		224.861mph
27.	Ryan Briscoe	Team Penske	224.134mph		224.639mph
28.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	224.074mph		224.628mph
29.	Charlie Kimball	Chip Ganassi	224.262mph		224.499mph
30.	Graham Rahal	Chip Ganassi	223.822mph		224.380mph
31.	Alex Lloyd	Dale Coyne	223.564mph		223.957mph
32.	Pippa Mann	Conquest	223.070mph		223.936mph
33.	Ana Beatriz	Dreyer & Reinbold	224.258mph		223.879mph

	DID NOT QUALIFY
34.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	222.951mph
35.	Raphael Matos	AFS Racing	222.786mph
36.	Mike Conway	Andretti Autosport	222.247mph
37.	James Jakes	Dale Coyne	221.846mph
38.	Sebastian Saavedra	Conquest	221.526mph
39.	Ho-Pin Tung	Dragon Racing	no time
40.	Scott Speed	Dragon Racing	no time
41.	Patrick Carpentier	Dragon Racing			no time