Briscoe takes pole for IndyCar race

Three-time defending champion Scott Dixon will start in the No. 4 position.

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (AP) — Scott Dixon came into the weekend insisting it wasn’t going to be easy to make it four straight IndyCar victories at Watkins Glen International.

Looks as if he was right.

Ryan Briscoe gave Team Penske its fourth straight pole on the 3.4-mile, 11-turn circuit in upstate New York, supplanting veteran teammate Helio Castroneves. The Brazilian’s string of three in a row was ended by a broken throttle cable that sent him to the rear of the 26-car field for today’s race.

Justin Wilson, one of the nine drivers transitioning from the defunct Champ Car World Series to the newly unified IRL IndyCar Series, will start from second, followed by Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Wilson appeared to have his first IndyCar pole wrapped up when he pitted after turning a lap of 1 minute, 29.38 seconds. But, as the Englishman sat in his car on pit road for the final moments of qualifying, Briscoe lapped the track at 1:29.34 to grab his second series pole and the 36th for Team Penske.

“The guys told me what Justin’s lap was and I knew I had a chance with one lap left,” the Australian driver said. “I was pushing hard and I pretty much had to slow it down a bit to go faster. I had been overdriving it a bit.”

If Dixon is going to set an IndyCar record of four straight wins on the same track this weekend, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver is going to have to do it from fourth place.

“There’s a lot of pressure when you come to tracks where you have done well in the past,” Dixon said. “But I think we just take it as another race. We’re in a different year, fighting for a different championship, and it’s all about points, man. We’ve got to get as many points as possible.”

The New Zealander, who has two victories this season, including the Indianapolis 500, heads into the Camping World Grand Prix of Watkins Glen leading Castroneves by 43 points and Ganassi teammate Dan Wheldon, who will start ninth, by 52.

Oriol Servia, another of the newcomers, and former series champion Tony Kanaan were the other two drivers who made it into the Firestone Fast Six in the three-round, knockout-style qualifying adopted by IndyCar for its road and street races this year.

Castroneves, a two-time Indy 500 winner and second in the season points, didn’t make it out of the first round Saturday. He parked his car in a runoff area before making even one hot lap in qualifying.