» IndyCars: Franchitti romps to New Hampshire pole

Dario Franchitti has claimed his second pole position of the 2011 IndyCar season with a dominant display during qualifying for the MoveThatBlock Indy 225 at New Hampshire.

The championship leader used his qualifying allotment – late in the one-hour session – to post a two-lap average speed over 170mph, a full 1mph faster than second-quickest driver Oriol Servià managed.

The Scot looks set to extend his championship points’ advantage over main rival Will Power, who could only qualify 13th-fastest, having unluckily drawn the allotment of being the first driver out on track to attempt to post a time.

Servià’s strong oval racing form continued on what was an excellent day for Newman/Haas, with his rookie team-mate James Hinchcliffe qualifying fourth-fastest. The Canadian rookie was denied he third-quickest time by Tony Kanaan, who set his time early in the session.

The third row of the grid is occupied by Ryan Hunter-Reay – undoubtedly the most consistent qualifier in the Andretti stable – and Ryan Briscoe, who was Penske’s best representative.

The top-ten was completed by Mid-Ohio race-winner Scott Dixon, KV Racing’s Takuma Sato, Hélio Castroneves in the third Penske and Chip Ganassi’s Charlie Kimball.

IndyCar returnee Tomas Scheckter qualified 18th-fastest, while Graham Rahal was the biggest loser in the session, losing crucial momentum for the start of his flying laps when he had a wild moment on his warm-up lap. His Ganassi entry stepped out at the back while he piloted through Turn 3, and the 22-year-old is now facing a busy race day as he tries to climb up the order from 23rd on the grid.

Pippa Mann failed to post a time, with her session being spent in hospital to investigate an injury to her left foot. She is unlikely to make the start of the race.

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2011 MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 (New Hampshire) Qualifying Results:

	Driver	Team	Time	Speed
1.	Dario Franchitti	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	43.1976	170.843
2.	Oriol Servià	Newman/Haas Racing	43.4549	169.831
3.	Tony Kanaan	KV Racing Technology Lotus	43.4890	169.698
4.	James Hinchcliffe	Newman/Haas Racing	43.5168	169.590
5.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	43.5219	169.570
6.	Ryan Briscoe	Team Penske	43.5524	169.451
7.	Scott Dixon	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	43.6391	169.114
8.	Takuma Sato	KV Racing Technology Lotus	43.6573	169.004
9.	Hélio Castroneves	Team Penske	43.6981	168.886
10.	Charlie Kimball	Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing	43.8155	168.434
11.	JR Hildebrand	Panther Racing	43.9164	168.047
12.	Mike Conway	Andretti Autosport	43.9672	167.852
13.	Will Power	Team Penske	44.1886	167.011
14.	Alex Lloyd	Dale Coyne Racing	44.2242	166.877
15.	Danica Patrick	Andretti Autosport	44.2356	166.834
16.	Alex Tagliani	Sam Schmidt Motorsports	44.2421	166.809
17.	EJ Viso	KV Racing Technology Lotus	44.3148	166.536
18.	Tomas Scheckter	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	44.3561	166.381
19.	Vitor Meira	AJ Foyt Enterprises	44.3901	166.253
20.	James Jakes	Dale Coyne Racing	44.6556	165.265
21.	Ana Beatriz	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	44.7387	164.958
22.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	44.8027	164.722
23.	Graham Rahal	Service Central Chip Ganassi	45.0505	163.816
24.	Sebastian Saavedra	Conquest Racing	45.4755	162.285
25.	Ed Carpenter	Sarah Fisher Racing	45.6304	161.734
26.	Simona de Silvestro	HVM Racing	46.8758	157.437
DNQ.	Pippa Mann	Rahal/Letterman/Lanigan	no time