IRL pole at Watkins Glen goes to Briscoe

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Scott Dixon came into the weekend insisting it wasn’t going to be easy to make it four straight IndyCar victories at Watkins Glen International.

Looks as if he was right.

Ryan Briscoe gave Team Penske its fourth straight pole on the 3.4-mile, 11-turn circuit in upstate New York, supplanting veteran teammate Helio Castroneves. The Brazilian’s string of three in a row was ended by a broken throttle cable that sent him to the rear of the 26-car field for Sunday’s race.

Justin Wilson, one of the nine drivers transitioning from the defunct Champ Car World Series to the newly unified IRL IndyCar Series, will start from second, followed by Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Wilson appeared to have his first IndyCar pole wrapped up when he pitted after turning a lap of 1 minute, 29.38 seconds. But, as the Englishman sat in his car on pit road for the final moments of qualifying, Briscoe lapped the track at 1:29.34 to grab his second series pole and the 36th for Team Penske.

“The guys told me what Justin’s lap was and I knew I had a chance with one lap left,” the Australian driver said. “I was pushing hard and I pretty much had to slow it down a bit to go faster. I had been overdriving it a bit.”

If Dixon is going to set an IndyCar record of four straight wins on the same track this weekend, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver is going to have to do it from fourth place.

“There’s a lot of pressure when you come to tracks where you have done well in the past,” Dixon said. “But I think we just take it as another race. We’re in a different year, fighting for a different championship, and it’s all about points, man. We’ve got to get as many points as possible.

“A lot of people might talk about going for four in a row and, before that, they talked about going for three in a row,” he added. “Three in a row is quite a long shot and four is even more of a long shot. So it’s definitely going to be a race.”

The New Zealander, who has two victories this season, including the Indianapolis 500, heads into the Camping World Grand Prix of Watkins Glen leading Castroneves by 43 points and Ganassi teammate Dan Wheldon, who will start ninth, by 52.

Oriol Servia, another of the newcomers, and former series champion Tony Kanaan were the other two drivers who made it into the Firestone Fast Six in the three-round, knockout-style qualifying adopted by IndyCar for its road and street races this year.

Castroneves, a two-time Indy 500 winner and second in the season points, didn’t make it out of the first round on Saturday. He parked his car in a runoff area before making even one hot lap in qualifying.

He climbed out of the car and, after standing near it for a few minutes with his hands on his hips, ran across the grass to borrow a screwdriver from a fan whose RV was parked along the fence. Castroneves appeared to tighten a few screws on the bodywork, then shrugged and gave up, waiting for the end of the session before his car was towed back to the pits.

“It’s really upsetting because I thought that we had a good chance at making in four poles in a row,” Castroneves said. “The good thing about this is that it didn’t happen in the race and we have a chance to turn it into a more positive result. Starting from the pole hasn’t worked out too well for us, so maybe the back of the field will treat us better.”

Castroneves, who started 18th and finished second last week on the short oval at Richmond, will likely have to use a similar pit strategy to get into contention on Sunday.

“They might make a few moves at the beginning,” Kanaan said of Castroneves’ team. “They have nothing to lose, really. You have fast guys everywhere, all over the place. But that should make it exciting for the fans.”

Will Power, another of the transition drivers expected to make a strong run in qualifying, got to the second round of the time trials and was running fourth early in that session when he spun and hit the guardrail, knocking off his rear wing and relegating himself to a 12th-place start.

Graham Rahal, the 19-year-old who won on the street circuit at St. Petersburg in his IndyCar debut earlier this season, had to have his car repaired after a crash during practice Saturday morning. The youngster didn’t get out of the first round of qualifying and will start 18th.

After Saturday qualifying; race Sunday

At Watkins Glen International

Watkins Glen, N.Y.

Lap length: 3.37 miles

(Car number in parentheses)

(All chassis Dallara, all engines Honda)

1. (6) Ryan Briscoe, 135.787 mph.

2. (02) Justin Wilson, 135.734.

3. (17) Ryan Hunter-Reay, 135.348.

4. (9) Scott Dixon, 135.285.

5. (5) Oriol Servia, 135.241.

6. (11) Tony Kanaan, 134.809.