Alexander Rossi upset the championship contenders to take his maiden Verizon IndyCar Series pole position around Watkins Glen International on Saturday.
The Andretti Herta Autosport driver will lead the field to the green flag on Sunday after a super flying lap in the Fast Six shootout, with his best time of 1:22.4639s enough to deny Watkins Glen specialist Scott Dixon by 0.0529 seconds.
Dixon will share the front row with Rossi however, with the Chip Ganassi Racing driver ending up just one ten-thousandth of a second ahead of current championship leader Josef Newgarden in the leading Team Penske entry.
Takuma Sato will join Newgarden on the second row for Andretti Autosport, while Charlie Kimball of Chip Ganassi Racing and Helio Castroneves of Team Penske rounded out those who made it through to the Fast Six.
Ryan Hunter-Reay will start seventh for Andretti Autosport having missed out on advancing to the Fast Six, as did Team Penske’s Will Power in eighth, while Sebastien Bourdais of Dale Coyne Racing and Graham Rahal of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing will share row five.
Carlos Muñoz, who denied AJ Foyt Racing team-mate Conor Daly a position in the Fast Twelve session by the narrowest of margins, will start eleventh ahead of Simon Pagenaud, who will be disappointed to be the slowest of the Team Penske drivers in twelfth.
Spencer Pigot and Daly will line-up on row seven ahead of Ed Jones and James Hinchcliffe, with Tony Kanaan, Jack Harvey, Max Chilton, Marco Andretti and JR Hildebrand completing the field, having all been eliminated in the first segments of qualifying.
Watkins Glen International Qualifying Result
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