» IndyCars: Franchitti wins Iowa pole

Dario Franchitti will start Saturday’s Iowa Corn 250 IndyCar Series race from pole position. The Scot won the third and final qualifying heat race at the short-track oval in the event’s unusual qualifying format, which featured three heat races to determine the race’s starting order.

The final heat race featured the eight fastest drivers from the second timed practice session, with defending race-winner Marco Andretti starting from pole position for the thirty-lap sprint race.

Franchitti would start from second, but took the lead on the fifth lap to win the event and the all-important pole position. But the Chip Ganassi driver will be mindful that this won’t guarantee him a good result come race day. At the last two oval events, Franchitti has qualified well, but suffered from either poor race pace or a mishap on race day.

Andretti would fall to third place behind Helio Castroneves, who earned the front-row starting berth alongside Franchitti by finishing second in the heat race.

James Hinchcliffe will start from fourth place, after managing to get ahead of the Penske Chevrolets of Will Power and Ryan Briscoe, who also managed to swap positions during the race. They will start alongside each other on the third row of the grid.

Ryan Hunter-Reay – winner last weekend at Milwaukee – will start from seventh place, with Scott Dixon in eighth.

Heat 2 saw a win for Tony Kanaan, who moved from fourth place to win and earn a provisional ninth-placed starting position. The Brazilian managed to get his KV Racing Chevrolet ahead after passing Justin Wilson and the battling Alex Tagliani and Rubens Barrichello for the lead. But Kanaan will take a ten-place grid penalty for having to change his engine ahead of this weekend’s race.

The first heat race was won comfortably by Graham Rahal, who claimed a win with an impressive margin of 6.2 seconds from Josef Newgarden in a race that featured little in the way of overtaking. But just like Heat 2 winner Kanaan, Rahal will also take a grid penalty for his own engine change.

2012 IndyCars Iowa Corn 250 – Qualifying Heat Race 1 (30 laps):

	Driver	Entrant	Result	Grid
1.	Graham Rahal	Chip Ganassi Racing	9:00.6441	10*
2.	Josef Newgarden (R)	Sarah Fisher Hartman	+ 6.2134	12
3.	JR Hildebrand	Panther Racing	+ 6.5594	14
4.	EJ Viso	KV Racing Technology	+ 7.4531	16*
5.	Oriol Servià	Dreyer & Reinbold / Panther	+ 8.3586	18
6.	Mike Conway	AJ Foyt Enterprises	+ 10.8144	20
7.	Ed Carpenter	Ed Carpenter Racing	+ 13.4036	22
8.	Takuma Sato	Rahal Letterman Lanigan	+ 18.5671	24

The results from Heat Race 1 will determine the even-numbered race starting positions from tenth place onwards. An asterisk (*) denotes a 10-place grid penalty will be imposed for an unscheduled engine change.

2012 IndyCars Iowa Corn 250 – Qualifying Heat Race 2 (30 laps):

	Driver	Entrant	Result	Grid
1.	Tony Kanaan	KV Racing Technology	8:59.4932	9*
2.	Alex Tagliani	Bryan Herta Autosport	+ 3.1255	11
3.	Rubens Barrichello	KV Racing Technology	+ 6.0818	13
4.	Justin Wilson	Dale Coyne Racing	+ 7.9310	15
5.	Charlie Kimball	Chip Ganassi Racing	+ 10.0818	17
6.	Katherine Legge (R)	Dragon Racing	+ 13.7490	19
7.	James Jakes	Dale Coyne Racing	+ 14.0032	21
8.	Simona de Silvestro	Lotus-HVM Racing	1 lap behind	23
9.	Simon Pagenaud (R)	Schmidt Hamilton	1 lap behind	25*

The results from Heat Race 2 will determine the odd-numbered race starting positions from ninth place onwards. An asterisk (*) denotes a 10-place grid penalty will be imposed for an unscheduled engine change.

2012 IndyCars Iowa Corn 250 – Qualifying Heat Race 3 (30 laps):

	Driver	Entrant	Result	Grid
1.	Dario Franchitti	Chip Ganassi Racing	9:16.9203	1
2.	Hélio Castroneves	Team Penske	+ 1.4671	2
3.	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	+ 5.1884	3
4.	James Hinchcliffe	Andretti Autosport	+ 5.9813	4
5.	Ryan Briscoe	Team Penske	+ 6.5813	5
6.	Will Power	Team Penske	+ 7.3543	6
7.	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	+ 7.8433	7
8.	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	+ 9.2963	8

The results from Heat Race 3 will determine the top-eight race starting positions. An asterisk (*) denotes a 10-place grid penalty will be imposed for an unscheduled engine change.