Helio Castroneves takes IndyCar pole at Barber Motorsports Park

The Brazilian, who won last weekend's season-opener in St Petersburg, took the top spot with a best lap of 1m10.4768s, putting him just clear of Andretti Autosport's James Hinchcliffe and Ganassi's Scott Dixon. The top three were covered by a little over 0.05 seconds, although Dixon lost a late chance to improve when he spun at Turn 5 on his final flying lap.

The session delivered a few surprises, including the failure of both Will Power (Penske) and Dario Franchitti (Ganassi) to make it through to the final six. Power appeared to be on target to progress from the second round when he set the quickest lap in the final moments, but he did so just moments after Ryan Hunter-Reay spun at Turn 9 and brought out the red flag.

Under IndyCar rules, Power's best time was wiped because it was set under a local yellow, leaving the Penske driver to start from ninth on the grid, while Hunter-Reay also had his best time erased for triggering the red in the first place, and the Andretti driver will start from 11th. He was third-quickest in the second phase of qualifying prior to having his lap time struck off the sheets.

Reigning champion Franchitti, meanwhile, did not even make it out of the first qualifying phase, and will start from 18th.

The misfortunes of the traditional powerhouses created opportunities for some of the other teams to shine. Mike Conway continued his strong start with AJ Foyt Racing by going fourth-fastest, while JR Hildebrand's fifth was the Panther team's best qualifying result on a road or street course since Tomas Scheckter lined up fourth at Sonoma in 2005.

Tony Kanaan rounded out the top six, the Brazilian having earlier bumped friend and KV Racing team-mate Rubens Barrichello out of the second qualifying phase with his last lap.

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                      Time        Gap
 1.  Helio Castroneves    Penske DW12-Chevrolet         1m10.4768s
 2.  James Hinchcliffe    Andretti DW12-Chevrolet       1m10.5222s  + 0.0454s
 3.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi DW12-Honda            1m10.5291s  + 0.0523s
 4.  Mike Conway          Foyt DW12-Honda               1m10.8791s  + 0.4023s
 5.  JR Hildebrand        Panther DW12-Chevrolet        1m11.0759s  + 0.5991s
 6.  Tony Kanaan          KV DW12-Chevrolet             1m11.3740s  + 0.8972s
 7.  EJ Viso              KV DW12-Chevrolet             1m11.5257s  Round 2
 8.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi DW12-Honda            1m11.5841s  Round 2
 9.  Will Power           Penske DW12-Chevrolet         1m12.0098s  Round 2
10.  Simon Pagenaud       Schmidt DW12-Honda            1m14.2839s  Round 2
11.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti DW12-Chevrolet                   Round 2
12.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske DW12-Chevrolet                     Round 2
13.  Marco Andretti       Andretti DW12-Chevrolet       1m10.6512s  Group 1
14.  Rubens Barrichello   KV DW12-Chevrolet             1m10.5664s  Group 2
15.  Josef Newgarden      Fisher DW12-Honda             1m10.6851s  Group 1
16.  Takuma Sato          Rahal DW12-Honda              1m10.6111s  Group 2
17.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dragon DW12-Lotus             1m10.7255s  Group 1
18.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi DW12-Honda            1m10.6749s  Group 2
19.  Justin Wilson        Coyne DW12-Honda              1m11.5524s  Group 1
20.  James Jakes          Coyne DW12-Honda              1m10.7526s  Group 2
21.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM DW12-Lotus                1m11.5721s  Group 1
22.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi DW12-Honda            1m11.3594s  Group 2
23.  Alex Tagliani        BHA DW12-Lotus                1m12.5778s  Group 1
24.  Ed Carpenter         Carpenter DW12-Chevrolet      1m11.8672s  Group 2
25.  Katherine Legge      Dragon DW12-Lotus             1m13.6457s  Group 1
26.  Oriol Servia         Dreyer & Reinbold DW12-Lotus  1m13.3349s  Group 2