Marco Andretti Wins the Pole at Auto Club Speedway; Ryan Briscoe Makes it Chevrolet Front Row for Final Race of 2012 Season
 
FONTANA, Calif. (September 14, 2012) – Marco Andretti, No. 26 Team RC Cola Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, won the pole for the MAVTV 500, and will lead the 26-car field to the green flag in Saturday night’s IZOD IndyCar Series season finale at Auto Club Speedway.  Andretti’s two-lap cumulative time of 1:06.6455 with an average speed of 216.069 m.p.h. captured the 10th pole of the season for Chevrolet. It is the first pole position this season for Andretti, and his first at the Fontana, California track.
 
Ryan Briscoe, No. 2 IZOD Team Penske Chevrolet, turned in the second quickest average speed to make it an all-Chevrolet IndyCar V6 front row.  It is the fifth top-two qualifying effort of the season for Briscoe.
 
Championship contenders Will Power, No. 12 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet, and Ryan Hunter-Reay, No. 28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda Andretti Autosport Chevrolet, qualified third and 17th respectively, but each will be assessed a 10 grid position penalty for unapproved engine changes prior to the start of the 250-lap/500-mile race on the 2.0-mile track.
 
In total, seven Team Chevy drivers were in the top-10 of the final qualifying order. In addition to Andretti, Briscoe and Power, Chevrolet IndyCar V6 powered drivers Tony Kanaan, JR Hildebrand, Ed Carpenter and Helio Castroneves landed in the top-10 at the end of the qualifying session.
 
Josef Newgarden (Honda) and Scott Dixon(Honda) completed the top-five in today’s qualifying.
The MAVTV 500 IndyCar season finale is scheduled to start at 5:45 p.m. PT (8:45 p.m. ET) Saturday night with live television coverage on NBC Sports Network.
The live radio coverage will air on the IMS Radio Network on SiriusXM (XM 94 and Sirius 212). In addition, IndyCar live timing and scoring with the radio broadcast can be found at