Hunter-Reay Heads Honda Qualifiers at Mid-Ohio
• Will start fourth in Honda Indy 200
• Graham Rahal continues run of top-six road course qualifying efforts
• Schmidt Peterson Motorsports teammates Hinchcliffe, Aleshin round out top-10

Always a contender at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Ryan Hunter-Reay led the way for Honda Saturday in Verizon IndyCar Series qualifying in preparation for Sunday’s Honda Indy 200, and will start from the outside of the second row, fourth, in his Andretti Autosport Honda.

Defending race winner Graham Rahal also advanced to the third and final qualifying round Saturday at Mid-Ohio, and will start sixth in his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda, his third “Fast Six” final effort in four natural road course events in 2016.

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports teammates James Hinchcliffe and Mikhail Aleshin just missed advancing to the final qualifying round, and will start 9th and 10th, respectively; while Indianapolis 500 champion Alexander Rossi was the fastest rookie in the field and will line up 12th on Sunday for Andretti Autosport.

Sunday’s 90-lap race starts at 2 p.m. EDT, with live network television coverage on CNBC.

Ryan Hunter-Reay (#28 Andretti Autosport Honda) qualified fourth: “We had to work for it today. That was tough — to get that lap time out of the car. The engineering department did a great job making the right changes overnight. We found grip. That’s what it’s all about; we’ve been looking for it. It was rewarding today to be in the [Firestone] Fast Six [final qualifying round] and then actually compete for that front row. It’s going to be a long race tomorrow, but this is where we need to be. We’ve had a pole here before, we’ve been on the podium here a few times and this is one of our better tracks. Smiles here right now, but it’s back to work tomorrow.”