» IndyCars: Franchitti clinches pole at Milwaukee

Dario Franchitti has secured his and the Ganassi team’s first IndyCar pole of the 2011 season after clocking the fastest average speed in qualifying for Sunday’s Milwaukee 225 at the Milwaukee Mile oval.

After being quickest in both of Saturday’s practice sessions, the Scot continued with that hot streak into qualifying, posting a two-lap average over 170mph – the only driver to nudge above 170mph in qualifying.

With Scot Dixon holding provisional pole, the Ganassi team had looked good for a front-row lockout, but Dixon’s time was usurped by Franchitti, and then also by Hélio Castroneves, who lifted the spirits in Team Penske after a tough day at the office.

While Castroneves was able to qualify well up the order, the team’s two Australian drivers, Ryan Briscoe and championship leader Will Power, could only muster eighth and seventeenth on the grid. Power was particularly frustrated after being unable to unlock the pace in his car.

KV Racing continued its sparkling form of late by getting all three of its drivers into the top-six on the grid, with Tony Kanaan (fourth) heading Takuma Sato and EJ Viso on the third row.

Two of the Andretti entries managed to get inside the top-ten, with Ryan Hunter-Reay lining up seventh and Marco Andretti taking ninth. Their team-mate Danica Patrick wasn’t far behind in fifteenth.

Oriol Servià rounded out the top-ten, just ahead of Ana Beatriz, who took her best-ever IndyCar qualifying result with eleventh on the grid.

But it was a bad session for Alex Tagliani – the mane who has enjoyed qualifying on pole at each of the two previous oval rounds this year – with the Sam Schmidt Motorsports driver languishing in 19th.

Simona de Silvestro was another driver to have a tough day, crashing out on a hot lap at Turn 4 before she rebounded onto the inside wall. The Swiss driver was carefully extricated from her HVM and taken to hospital for checks after she complained of stiffness. It is the second major accident for de Silvestro in just weeks, coming shortly after her heavy crash at Indianapolis in the lead-up to qualifying for the Indy 500.

2011 Milwaukee 225 Qualifying Results:

	Driver	Team	Avg Speed
1.	Dario Franchitti	Chip Ganassi	170.841mph
2.	Hélio Castroneves	Team Penske	169.999mph
3.	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi	169.582mph
4.	Tony Kanaan	KV Racing Technology Lotus	169.365mph
5.	Takuma Sato	KV Racing Technology Lotus	169.308mph
6.	EJ Viso	KV Racing Technology Lotus	169.082mph
7.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	169.014mph
8.	Ryan Briscoe	Team Penske	168.598mph
9.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	168.456mph
10.	Oriol Servià	Newman/Haas Racing	168.320mph
11.	Ana Beatriz	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	167.863mph
12.	Graham Rahal	Chip Ganassi	167.674mph
13.	Justin Wilson	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	167.621mph
14.	Alex Lloyd	Dale Coyne Racing	167.162mph
15.	Danica Patrick	Andretti Autosport	166.779mph
16.	James Hinchcliffe	Newman/Haas Racing	166.558mph
17.	Will Power	Team Penske	166.248mph
18.	JR Hildebrand	Panther Racing	166.070mph
19.	Alex Tagliani	Sam Schmidt Motorsports	166.031mph
20.	Mike Conway	Andretti Autosport	166.003mph
21.	Charlie Kimball	Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi	165.592mph
22.	Vitor Meira	AJ Foyt Enterprises	165.375mph
23.	James Jakes	Dale Coyne Racing	164.814mph
24.	Sebastian Saavedra	Conquest Racing	164.440mph
25.	Ed Carpenter	Sarah Fisher Racing	163.304mph
26.	Simona de Silvestro	HVM Racing	no time