» IndyCars: Kanaan claims Las Vegas pole

Tony Kanaan has claimed his first pole position for the KV Racing outfit in a fascinating qualifying session for the season-ending Las Vegas round where many of the year’s frontrunning drivers were upstaged.

The season’s championship contenders, Will Power and Dario Franchitti, both suffered disastrous qualifying sessions – the pair will start from the ninth row in what is by far and away their worst collective performance of the season. Franchitti simply needs to finish ahead of Power to successfully defend his championship crown.

With just a few minutes left in qualifying, it looked as though Oriol Servià would claim the top qualifying prize, after muscling his Newman/Haas entry around the oval circuit at an average speed of over 222mph.

But the Spaniard’s hopes of claiming his first pole position since his effort at the Champ Car round on the Gold Coast in 2005 faded away when Kanaan just managed to edge him out, to the tune of just 0.17mph, or 0.0019 seconds over a two-lap average. There was virtually nothing in it!

Starting from third place will be Ed Carpenter, who continues his remarkable oval circuit form after his win at the last championship round at Kentucky. The Sarah Fisher driver bumped early pole-sitter Alex Tagliani (who is driving for Bryan Herta Autosports this weekend) down to fourth.

With Team Penske and Ganassi having typically dominated in almost every qualifying session this season, it was a surprise to see both outfits struggling this weekend. Ryan Brisco (5th) and Graham Rahal (8th) were the best performers, respectively, for the outfits.

On the flipside, the four-car Andretti Autosports team had one of its strongest collective performances, getting all four cars into the top-ten, having briefly held the top-three slots earlier in the session.

Wade Cunningham was the quickest rookie driver, qualifying his AFS / Sam Schmidt entry an impressive 12th on just his third ever IndyCar outing, while Rookie of the Year contenders James Hinchcliffe and JR Hildebrand will start line astern in 14th and 15th positions, respectively.

Despite knowing he will start from the rear of the field, Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon still had a crack in qualifying, although he only managed to get his Sam Schmidt entry 29th-fastest.

EJ Viso and James Jakes both missed the session. Viso didn’t participate after taking an engine change on Thursday, while Jakes’ car was being repaired after a heavy crash at the start of today’s final practice session.

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2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championships at Las Vegas Final Qualifying Results:

	Driver	Team	Speed
1.	Tony Kanaan	KV Racing Technology Lotus	222.078mph
2.	Oriol Servià	Newman/Haas Racing	222.061mph
3.	Ed Carpenter	Sarah Fisher Racing	221.509mph
4.	Alex Tagliani	Bryan Herta Autosports	221.330mph
5.	Ryan Briscoe	Team Penske	221.130mph
6.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	221.129mph
7.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	221.040mph
8.	Graham Rahal	Service Central Chip Ganassi	220.958mph
9.	Danica Patrick	Andretti Autosport	220.925mph
10.	Mike Conway	Andretti Autosport	220.922mph
11.	Hélio Castroneves	Team Penske	220.907mph
12.	Wade Cunningham	AFS / Sam Schmidt Motorsports	220.790mph
13.	Scott Dixon	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	220.715mph
14.	James Hinchcliffe	Newman/Haas Racing	220.701mph
15.	JR Hildebrand	Panther Racing	220.639mph
16.	Takuma Sato	KV Racing Technology Lotus	220.627mph
17.	Will Power	Team Penske	220.524mph
18.	Dario Franchitti	Target Chip Ganassi Racing	220.489mph
19.	Buddy Rice	Panther Racing	220.392mph
20.	Sebastian Saavedra	Conquest Racing	220.335mph
21.	Alex Lloyd	Dale Coyne Racing	220.314mph
22.	Charlie Kimball	Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing	219.982mph
23.	Townsend Bell	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	219.942mph
24.	Tomas Scheckter	Sarah Fisher racing	219.816mph
25.	Davey Hamilton	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	219.493mph
26.	Vitor Meira	AJ Foyt Enterprises	219.273mph
27.	Paul Tracy	Dragon Racing	218.661mph
28.	Jay Howard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	218.577mph
29.	Dan Wheldon	Sam Schmidt Motorsports	218.410mph
30.	Pippa Mann	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	218.157mph
31.	Ana Beatriz	Dreyer & Reinbold Racing	218.153mph
32.	Simona de Silvestro	HVM Racing	218.132mph
33.	EJ Viso	KV Racing Technology Lotus	no time
34.	James Jakes	Dale Coyne Racing	no time