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Houston IndyCar: Castroneves beats Pagenuad to race two pole

Helio Castroneves narrowly beat Simon Pagenaud to claim pole position for the second race in this weekend's IndyCar double-header in Houston

Castroneves had gone into the session needing to beat the 1m00.2493s set earlier by Mikhail Aleshin, although it was Pagenaud who first managed to stake a provisional claim to the top spot when he beat the Russian's time on his first run.

Castroneves' own response came when he produced a 59.1702s lap on his second set of tyres, and while Pagenaud was also able to improve, it wasn't by quite enough and he missed out on a clean sweep of Houston poles by just 0.02 seconds.

"The car was awesome," said Castroneves. "Yesterday we missed out by a little bit, and today we didn't miss."

Despite having a slower outright time than Pagenaud, Aleshin will join Castroneves on the front row in reward for having been fastest in the first group, with Pagenaud to start from third alongside Graham Rahal.

Sebastien Bourdais and Justin Wilson complete the top six.

Like yesterday, many of the big guns struggled. Current points leader Will Power's miserable Houston weekend continued; the Australian finishing up mired in 18th, while Scott Dixon could manage no better than 11th and Juan Pablo Montoya 14th.

The latter's progress was hampered to some degree when he was blocked at the chicane by Josef Newgarden; an infraction that cost the SFHR driver his two fastest laps after series officials determined that it constituted qualifying interference.

Bizarrely, the most significant incident of the morning did not involve a car.

The track had just gone green for the first qualifying group when two people were seen running across a section of the track, reaching an access gap in the barriers just as a car came into view.

At time of writing there is no further information regarding how they were able to access the circuit during a session.

Pos Driver              Team/Engine       Time               
 1. Helio Castroneves   Penske/Chevy      59.1702s    Group 2
 2. Mikhail Aleshin     Schmidt/Honda     1m00.2493s  Group 1
 3. Simon Pagenaud      Schmidt/Honda     59.1962s    Group 2
 4. Graham Rahal        Rahal/Honda       1m00.29932  Group 1
 5. Sebastien Bourdais  KV/Chevy          59.28632    Group 2
 6. Justin Wilson       Coyne/Honda       1m00.3369s  Group 1
 7. James Hinchcliffe   Andretti/Honda    59.5133s    Group 2
 8. Tony Kanaan         Ganassi/Chevy     1m00.4841s  Group 1
 9. Carlos Munoz        Andretti/Honda    59.6652s    Group 2
10. Takuma Sato         Foyt/Honda        1m00.5288s  Group 1
11. Scott Dixon         Ganassi/Chevy     59.7543s    Group 2
12. Luca Filippi        Rahal/Honda       1m00.7529s  Group 1
13. Carlos Huertas      Coyne/Honda       59.8052s    Group 2
14. Juan Pablo Montoya  Penske/Chevy      1m00.8328s  Group 1
15. Ryan Briscoe        Ganassi/Chevy     1m00.1384s  Group 2
16. Marco Andretti      Andretti/Honda    1m01.0311s  Group 1
17. Mike Conway         Carpenter/Chevy   1m00.1423s  Group 2
18. Will Power          Penske/Chevy      1m01.1423s  Group 1
19. Charlie Kimball     Ganassi/Chevy     1m00.1989s  Group 2
20. Sebastian Saavedra  KV/Chevy          1m01.2876s  Group 1
21. Ryan Hunter-Reay    Andretti/Honda    1m00.2244s  Group 2
22. Josef Newgarden     Fisher/Honda      1m03.4769s  Group 1
23. Jack Hawksworth     Herta/Honda       1m00.5822s  Group 2
                                                             
                                                             

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