At times, you wonder why other drivers bother going for pole position anymore - especially when it's a road or street circuit and Will Power is sitting patiently in his Penske. Yet on Saturday at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, there was an inclining that the Aussie might finally have been rumbled - the 29-year-old having smashed his primary car during the morning session. No matter - Power got into the back up car and put that on pole position instead. Simples.

It wasn't completely clear cut. The Andretti Autosport man, Ryan Hunter-Reay and the Ganassi pair of Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti frequently challenged for top spot, while Takuma Sato in his Lotus-coloured KV Racing machine set some ferocious times too. Eventually Franchitti did enough to secure the outside of turn 1 alongside Power, with Sato leading Hunter-Reay on the second row. Dixon lined-up behind the front four, as Helio Castroneves silently claimed sixth spot.

There were high hopes that Simona de Silvestro might be able to make it through to the Firestone Fast Six, but a failure just prior to her final run left the 'Swiss Miss' all the way down in 10th position. Also disappointed to miss out were EJ Viso, Justin Wilson and Ryan Briscoe - all of whom were involved in incidents.

After violently chopping off Helio Castroneves on the back stretch and spinning on his fast lap, Viso baulked Briscoe while recovering leading the Australian himself to spin.

The Penske then appeared to be letting a fast approaching Justin Wilson through, when he drew across the track and sent both into the tyre barrier. A silly mistake by the 2009 title challenger led to briefly angry scenes, but more importantly it left him down in 7th place, alongside Viso (8th). Wilson starts from 11th.

Marco Andretti and Hideki Mutoh start from 9th and 12th respectively after fairly anonymous sessions. The Andretti name has has some interesting accidents in the past at Mid-Ohio, with Marco's father (Michael) flipping violently in 1998 and Marco himself landing upside down at the race start in 2007.

The first qualifying sessions carried a few surprises - only naturally considering it knocks out half the field - and on this occasion Dan Wheldon (13th), Adam Carroll (17th) and Tony Kanaan (20th) failed to make it through to the initial stages.

IndyCar débutantes JR Hildebrand and Francesco Dracone line up in 18th and 23rd respectively and despite upping her speed this weekend, Milka Duno was not allowed to qualify. The Dale Coyne driver will start 27th and last.

This was Power's fifth pole of the season and was enough for him to clinch the Andretti Road Course Trophy and the extra point from pole allowed the Penske driver to extend his Championship lead to 51 points over Dario Franchitti.

IndyLights

For the first part of the 45 minute qualifying session for IndyLights, Martin Plowman topped the times in his AFS/Andretti Autosport machine, prior to debris bringing out a lengthy yellow flag period.

Once the session restarted, Championship challenger James Hinchcliffe jumped to the top of the standings with Stefan Wilson only a few hundredths of a second slower. Following a static period Plowman would once again retake the top spot on the time sheets, but this time he would stay there as a fierce battle for 2nd and lower became ever more frantic.

Charlie Kimball, JK Vernay and Sebastian Saavedra all joined the battle for the top three, but it would be James Hinchcliffe that would eventually claim 2nd spot ahead of former-Champ Car drive 'Speedy' Dan Clarke. Saavedra picked up 4th spot, while Series leader Vernay found himself all the way down in 7th position for tomorrow's race.

This was Plowman's first ever IndyLights pole position and with passing being notoriously hard at Mid-Ohio, it could well be the most important pole of the year. Former F3 EuroSeries race winner, JK Vernay leads Hinchcliffe by a huge margin of 55 points in the standings, having only once not finished on the podium so far this season, while Plowman is a further 26 points behind Hinchcliffe.