Will Power has secured his fifth pole of the season as he and team-mate Josef Newgarden finished qualifying comfortably clear of the IndyCar field at Mid-Ohio.
Power clocked a 1:04.1720s in his #12 Team Penske Chevrolet to earn top spot on the grid and a sixth straight front row start at Mid-Ohio, with Pagenaud 0.13s slower.
Takuma Sato was over half a second adrift of the Australian as he qualified third in his Andretti Autosport Honda and will share the second row with Graham Rahal (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Honda).
The top two in the championship, Helio Castroneves (Team Penske Chevrolet) and Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Honda) will start out of row three.
Simon Pagenaud was the only Penske driver to miss the Firestone Fast 6, falling an agonising 0.0448s short as the first seven were covered by 0.2180s during the second segment of qualifying.
However, the Frenchman did ensure that the top seven in the series will be starting from the first seven grid positions for the 12th race of the Verizon IndyCar Series season.
Tony Kanaan will grid up a lowly 17th after losing his best lap during the first segment of qualifying for causing a local yellow when he half spun his Chip Ganassi Honda.
Mikhail Aleshin was back in the driver’s seat of the #7 Schmidt Peterson Honda after being replaced by Sebastian Saavedra at Toronto, qualifying last of the 21 cars.
The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio starts on Monday at 0540 AEST.
Qualifying: Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio
Pos | Driver | C/A/E/T | Time | Session |
1 | Will Power | D/C/C/F | 01:04.1720 | Fast Six |
2 | Josef Newgarden | D/C/C/F | 01:04.3067 | Fast Six |
3 | Takuma Sato | D/H/H/F | 01:04.6792 | Fast Six |
4 | Graham Rahal | D/H/H/F | 01:04.7959 | Fast Six |
5 | Helio Castroneves | D/C/C/F | 01:04.8485 | Fast Six |
6 | Scott Dixon | D/H/H/F | 01:05.1927 | Fast Six |
7 | Simon Pagenaud | D/C/C/F | 01:04.3008 | Round 2 |
8 | James Hinchcliffe | D/H/H/F | 01:04.3784 | Round 2 |
9 | Alexander Rossi | D/H/H/F | 01:04.4906 | Round 2 |
10 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | D/H/H/F | 01:04.4928 | Round 2 |
11 | Conor Daly | D/C/C/F | 01:04.8745 | Round 2 |
12 | Esteban Gutierrez (R) | D/H/H/F | 01:05.0368 | Round 2 |
13 | Charlie Kimball | D/H/H/F | 01:04.9930 | Round 1 / Group 1 |
14 | Marco Andretti | D/H/H/F | 01:04.5929 | Round 1 / Group 2 |
15 | Ed Jones (R) | D/H/H/F | 01:05.0337 | Round 1 / Group 1 |
16 | Spencer Pigot | D/H/H/F | 01:04.6186 | Round 1 / Group 2 |
17 | Tony Kanaan | D/H/H/F | 01:05.3200 | Round 1 / Group 1 |
18 | Max Chilton | D/H/H/F | 01:04.8603 | Round 1 / Group 2 |
19 | JR Hildebrand | D/C/C/F | 01:05.3382 | Round 1 / Group 1 |
20 | Carlos Muñoz | D/C/C/F | 01:04.9440 | Round 1 / Group 2 |
21 | Mikhail Aleshin | D/H/H/F | 01:05.2441 | Round 1 / Group 2 |
(C)hassis: D=Dallara | (A)erokit: C=Chevy, H=Honda | (E)ngine: C=Chevy, H=Honda | (T)yre: F=Firestone