Sato and Hinchcliffe to share front row for Race Two at Belle Isle

DETROIT - Helio Castroneves quickly climbed from the No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske car and slapped hands with his engineer and race strategist after recording a track record lap in qualifications for Dual 2 of the Chevrolet Indy Dual in Detroit presented by Quicken Loans.

Unfortunately for the Brazilian, Takuma Sato was still on the 2.36-mile, 13-turn street circuit to close the 12-minute session and the No. 14 ABC Supply car pipped Castroneves for the Verizon P1 Award with a lap of 1 minute, 16.1371 seconds (breaking Castroneves' day-old track record in its current configuration).

It was the second pole of the season for the A.J. Foyt Racing driver; the only driver with more than one through seven Verizon IndyCar Series races.

Qualifications were split into two groups based on practice times May 30 for 12 minutes of track time each, with the starting lineup set by the group earning the pole occupying the odd-numbered positions and the other group the even-numbered positions. The second session, which included Sato and Castroneves, was shortened to 6:57 of green flag running because of a single-car incident involving the No. 28 DHL car driven by newly-crowned Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Castroneves, who started from the pole in Dual 1 and finished fifth, recorded a best lap of 1:16.3624 and will start third and will be joined on Row 2 by Mike Conway (1:16.8580) in the No. 20 Fuzzy's Ultra Premium Vodka car for Ed Carpenter Racing.

James Hinchcliffe, who topped the time sheet in Group 1 with a lap of 1:16.3739 in the No. 27 United Fiber & Data car for Andretti Autosport, will start second for the second consecutive 70-lap race on Belle Isle and the fourth time this season.

IndyCar Public Relations