Scott Dixon earns pole for 99th Indianapolis 500

INDIANAPOLIS - The top 30 spots have been set for the 2015 running of the Indianapolis 500. Scott Dixon has earned his second pole position in the event with a four-lap average of 226.760mph. Team Penske teammates Will Power (226.350mph) and Simon Pagenaud (226.145mph) make up the rest of the front row.

Dixon comments

It means a lot," said the pole-sitter. "I think with all the preparation that goes into qualifying alone we still have the race to come next week. I’m just so proud of everybody at Team Target whether it’s the engineers and everybody that has worked so hard to get the speed out of this car. It was definitely a tough day. I’m stoked. Just extremely happy that we are on the pole I wasn’t sure we went so early that it was going to stick.”

"I think the Team Target guys did a hell of a job to get the combination together. The worked hard. You work and your mindset is on one combination a for a whole week, even the lead up to it on low boost. Then a low configuration and a high boost, then it changes. You just have to take your best guess at it and you got a small feeling in a session and you really know how it is going to be."

Best of the rest

Dixon was also the only driver to top 227mph in one of his four laps. The top five are all Penske or Ganassi Chevrolets, with Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves rounding out the final two spots.

Andretti Autosport's Justin Wilson was the highest qualifying Honda in sixth. Sebastien Bourdais, Marco Andretti, Josef Newgarden, and J.R. Hildebrand make up the rest of the top ten.

Graham Rahal, who will start 17th, said that he suffered gearbox issues during his run while in fifth and sixth gear.

Bumping

Jack Hawksworth, Stefano Coletti, Bryan Clauson, and Buddy Lazier were the slowest four cars and got one more chance to fight their way into the 500 with one going home, Lazier ended up coming 1mph short of Clauson, a 220.153mph lap to a 221.358mph.

Full qualifying results:

Pos	No.	Driver	Team	Speed (mph)
1	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	226.760
2	1	Will Power	Team Penske	226.350
3	22	Simon Pagenaud	Team Penske	226.145
4	10	Tony Kanaan	Chip Ganassi Racing	225.503
5	3	Helio Castroneves	Team Penske	225.502
6	25	Justin Wilson	Andretti Autosport	225.279
7	11	Sebastien Bourdais	KV Racing Technology	225.193
8	27	Marco Andretti	Andretti Autosport	225.189
9	21	Josef Newgarden	CFH Racing	225.187
10	6	J. R. Hildebrand	CFH Racing	225.099
11	26	Carlos Munoz	Andretti Autosport	225.042
12	20	Ed Carpenter	CFH Racing	224.883
13	32	Oriol Servia	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	224.777
14	83	Charlie Kimball	Chip Ganassi Racing	224.743
15	2	Juan Pablo Montoya	Team Penske	224.657
16	28	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Andretti Autosport	224.573
17	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	224.290
18	18	Carlos Huertas	Dale Coyne Racing	224.233
19	29	Simona de Silvestro	Andretti Autosport	223.838
20	7	James Jakes	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	223.790
21	19	Tristan Vautier*	Dale Coyne Racing	223.747
22	48	Alex Tagliani	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	223.722
23	8	Sage Karam	Chip Ganassi Racing	223.595
24	5	James Hinchcliffe	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	223.519
25	43	Conor Daly	Schmidt Peterson Motorsports	223.482
26	24	Townsend Bell	Dreyer & Reinbold Kingdom Racing	223.447
27	14	Takuma Sato	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	223.226
28	63	Pippa Mann	Dale Coyne Racing	223.104
29	98	Gabby Chaves	Bryan Herta Autosport	222.916
30	17	Sebastian Saavedra	Chip Ganassi Racing	222.898
31	41	Jack Hawksworth	A. J. Foyt Enterprises	223.738
32	4	Stefano Coletti	KV Racing Technology	222.001
33	88	Bryan Clauson	Jonathan Byrd's Racing	221.358
DNQ	91	Buddy Lazier	Lazier Partners Racing	220.153