Castroneves Takes Crucial Pole Position at Fontana

Hélio Castroneves (left) will take the fight to Will Power (right) for the championship from pole position

When the green flag waves to start the MAVTV 500 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California the championship lead will automatically change.

Despite the power going out at the track, Hélio Castroneves picked up a crucial pole position as his teammate Will Power battled with understeer on his qualifying run, dropping the Australian to twenty-first, second-to-last. Power's 51-point lead will vanish as the difference between first and twenty-first is 83 points. The Brazilian ran a two-lap average of 218.540 MPH while Power could only manage 212.604 MPH. 

This was Chevrolet's 13th pole of 2014 and eighth consecutive to close out the season. This is Castroneves' third career Fontana pole position. His first two came in 2003 and 2004. He finished sixth and seventh in those race respectively.

Juan Pablo Montoya qualified second with a two-lap average of 217.621 MPH, a career best starting position for the Colombian at Fontana. Josef Newgarden was the top Honda qualifier as he rounds out  the front row. Remember, Triple Crown races feature rows of three. The Tennesseean was 0.021 MPH behind Montoya and this will be Newgarden's second consecutive front row start and fourth of the 2014 season.

Takuma Sato was on pace for pole but like many during the session lost time on his second lap and ended up fourth. Ganassi drivers were the next three on the timesheet with Scott Dixon leading the way. Following Dixon was Charlie Kimball and Tony Kanaan. 

Joining Kanaan on row three will be Mikhail Aleshin, the fastest rookie. This year's Indianapolis 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay qualified ninth. Graham Rahal rounds out the top ten. James Hinchcliffe ended up qualifying eleventh ahead of Ryan Briscoe. Simon Pagenaud qualified thirteenth. The Frenchman is still mathematically eligible for the title but has to win tomorrow to have any shot of hoisting the Astor Cup. Ed Carpenter was on pace for pole position after his first qualifying lap but lost nearly seven miles per hour on his second lap and ended up fourteenth. Sébastien Bourdais rounded out the top fifteen. 

The Brits Justin Wilson and Jack Hawksworth ended sixteenth and seventeenth respectively. Marco Andretti qualified seventeenth, his worst qualifying position at Fontana. His previous worse was eighth. Carlos Muñoz leads the Rookie of the Year standings and qualified nineteenth ahead of fellow Colombian Sebastián Saavedra and the aforementioned Will Power in twenty-first. 

Carlos Huertas qualified twenty-second. The rookie Huertas was massively off the pace as he was the only driver to have a warm-up lap below 200 MPH and his two-lap average was 202.319 MPH, more than 10 MPH off Power in twenty-first. 

The final practice session of the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season will take place at 10:15 p.m. ET and will be 30-minutes long. 

NBCSN's coverage of the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season finale, the MAVTV 500 will begin at 9:00 p.m. ET tomorrow with green flag at 10:20 p.m. ET