Tony Kanaan Earns 1st Pole of Izod IndyCar Series Season in Las Vegas

Tony Kanaan earned his 15th career pole in the Izod IndyCar Series with claiming the top spot in the inaugural Honda IndyCar World Championships at Las Vegas.

Kanaan topped Oriol Servia in the No. 82 Geico Honda with a two-lap average of 222.078 mph.

Servia joins Kanaan on the front row and are the only two to top the 222 mph bracket.

Servia's two-lap average was 222.061 mph in the No. 2 Telemundo Honda for Newman/Hass Racing.

The last race winner on the Izod IndyCar Series schedule Ed Carpenter will start third in the No. 67 Dollar General Honda with a two-lap average of 221.509 mph.  Las Vegas is similar track to the one the series raced at last in Kentucky, so Carpenter should be a favorite.

Joining Carpenter on row two is Alex Tagliani.

Tags is driving the car that was in Victory Lane in Indy by Dan Wheldon.  He turned a two-lap average of 221.330 mph in the No. 98 William Rast Honda.

Rounding out the top five was Penske Racing's Ryan Briscoe.

Briscoe's two-lap average was 221.130 mph in the No. 6 Izod Honda.

There's five different teams represented in the top five.

The two championship contenders will join each other in row nine.

Will Power will start 17th with a disappointing two-lap average of 220.524, while Dario Franchitti will start alongside in 18th with a two-lap average of 220.489 mph.

The other championship battle to watch out for on Sunday is the rookie of the year.  Both drivers will start close in that battle as well.

James Hinchcliffe will start 14th with a two-lap average of 220.701 while current rookie of the year points leader J.R. Hildebrand will start 15th with a two-lap average of 220.639 mph.

The best all-around team in the qualifying session was Andretti Autosport.  They placed all four cars in the top 10.

Marco Andretti will start sixth, Ryan Hunter-Reay (seventh), Danica Patrick (ninth) and Mike Conway (10th) capped a good day for the Andretti team.

Two cars didn't make a qualifying effort, and those were E.J. Viso and rookie James Jakes.

Viso's team made an unapproved engine change and Jakes wrecked in practice earlier today.

The race will be at 3 P.M. on Sunday and coverage can be seen live on ABC.

Starting Line-Up

Rank	Car	Driver	Warmup	Lap 1	Lap 2	AVG
1		Tony Kanaan	217.646	222.034	222.121	222.078
2		Oriol Servia	217.702	222.052	222.070	222.061
3		Ed Carpenter	217.410	221.392	221.626	221.509
4		Alex Tagliani	218.269	221.229	221.431	221.330
5		Ryan Briscoe	216.400	221.168	221.091	221.130
6		Marco Andretti	218.245	221.193	221.064	221.129
7		Ryan Hunter-Reay	214.734	220.924	221.157	221.040
8		Graham Rahal	216.796	220.937	220.979	220.958
9		Danica Patrick	216.541	220.787	221.063	220.925
10		Mike Conway	217.037	220.770	221.073	220.922
11		Helio Castroneves	218.843	220.790	221.023	220.907
12		Wade Cunningham	216.699	220.734	220.846	220.790
13		Scott Dixon	217.000	220.859	220.571	220.715
14		James Hinchcliffe	215.218	220.705	220.698	220.701
15		JR Hildebrand	216.157	220.712	220.566	220.639
16		Takuma Sato	214.123	220.569	220.684	220.627
17		Will Power	215.170	220.438	220.610	220.524
18		Dario Franchitti	217.321	220.393	220.585	220.489
19		Buddy Rice	216.968	220.269	220.515	220.392
20		Sebastian Saavedra	215.385	220.260	220.410	220.335
21		Alex Lloyd	215.893	220.324	220.304	220.314
22		Charlie Kimball	215.694	219.898	220.066	219.982
23		Townsend Bell	214.967	219.801	220.082	219.942
24		Tomas Scheckter	214.123	219.774	219.857	219.816
25		Davey Hamilton	212.467	219.190	219.796	219.493
26		Vitor Meira	214.652	219.053	219.494	219.273
27		Paul Tracy	215.583	218.691	218.632	218.661
28		Jay Howard	214.093	218.287	218.868	218.577
29		Dan Wheldon	213.511	218.370	218.450	218.410
30		Pippa Mann	211.904	218.002	218.312	218.157
31		Ana Beatriz	214.783	217.980	218.327	218.153
32		Simona de Silvestro	215.057	218.238	218.025	218.132