Scott Dixon continued his domination of the Watkins Glen weekend as he added pole position to his three practice session times on Saturday.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver was able to top spot in the Fast Six shootout despite using the supposedly slower black tyres, with his best time of 1:22.5259 enough to secure his second Verizon IndyCar Series pole of 2016.
It was a close run thing however, with Team Penske’s Will Power missing out by just 0.0483 seconds, with the pole time more than five seconds faster than the IndyCar track record set back in 2009.
Sebastien Bourdais will line-up third for KVSH Racing ahead of Helio Castroneves of Penske, while the top six was completed by Chip Ganassi duo Tony Kanaan and Max Chilton, with the latter making his first appearance of the season in the Fast Six shootout.
Power was fortunate to make it through to the shootout after moving back into top six when Mikhail Aleshin had his best two times deleted for getting in the way of Juan Pablo Montoya during the session, with the Russian now set to start tenth in his Schmidt Peterson Motorsport machine.
Championship leader Simon Pagenaud will start seventh for Penske alongside team-mate Montoya, while Jack Hawksworth was the best placed Honda-representative in ninth for AJ Foyt Racing ahead of Aleshin.
RC Enerson, competing in only his second event with Dale Coyne Racing, was an impressive eleventh, while Josef Newgarden was down in twelfth for Ed Carpenter Racing.
Two drivers had looked set to move through into the second Fast Twelve section of qualifying only to have laps deleted, with James Hinchcliffe and Graham Rahal both losing their two best times, the former for causing a yellow flag with a spin at turn seven, and the latter for impeding.
Watkins Glen International Qualifying Result
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