Castroneves on IndyCar Twin Motegi Pole in 1—2—3 Penske Sweep

Castroneves started from the pole in 2001, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and won the 2006 race. He captured the 2010 pole with a qualifying speed of 201.992 mph, beating out teammate Ryan Briscoe by .1071 seconds.

Briscoe actually ran faster than Castroneves on his second lap, but enough slower on his first to come in second.

Points leader Will Power rounds out the Penske sweep with a qualifying speed of 201.464 mph, only .0353 behind Briscoe. Power will be looking to lock up the A.J. Foyt Oval Championship at Motegi.

Power’s main rival, Dario Franchitti of Target-Ganassi, was the fastest non-Penske on the track, .2771 seconds off the pace.

Frahchitti was followed by a trio of Andretti Autosports drivers, Marco Andretti in fifth, Tony Kanaan sixth, and Ryan Hunter-Reay seventh. AA has not been very successful so far, and Kanaan in particular has had tough times in qualifying this season. Obviously for Motegi the team found the formula, and should be challenging for the win on race day.

AA’s fourth driver, Danica Patrick, whose only career win came at Motegi in 2008, did not fare as well as her teammates, but still qualified a respectable 12th, only .8327 slower than pole.

Graham Rahal, rumored to be signing with Target-Chip Ganassi next year, qualified sixteenth. He finished third here in 2009.

Tough Track

Motegi is a challenging track because one end is a big Superspeedway corner—Turns One and Two—while the other end, Turns Three and Four, is much tighter. The track demands more of drivers and engineers.

Unlike other 1.5 mile ovals, Motegi demands a compromise setup for the two different corners. Also, with lower banking (10 degrees versus 18 at Chicagoland or 14 degrees at Kentucky Speedway,) the drivers have to steer more, so precision and efficiency play a huge role.

The track is only used once a year. This means that there is no racing rubber laid down for practicve or qwualifying. During the race rthe track will "rubber in," changing grip levels. Crews will have to compensate.

To increase the challenge, there is a large bump between Tiurns One and Two, where drivers absolutley need to maintain speed to make a good run dowen the back straight. The rest of the course is smooth, but that one bump could unsettle unwary drivers.

The IndyCar Indy Japan 300 will air at 11 p.m. EDT on Versus TV in the United States. The race is actually being run on Sunday afternoon in Japan.