One year after a brutal crash in practice left James Hinchcliffe fighting for his life, the affable Canadian snatched pole position for the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, bettering Josef Newgarden on the final run of the day by roughly four hundredths of a second over the four lap average. It is Hinchcliffe's first career pole, and the first Indy 500 pole for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports since 2011, when they did so with Alex Tagliani.

"This is just so huge for the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team," said Hinchcliffe, wholed the three Schmidt Peterson drivers as they all qualified in the top ten. "To have all three cars in the top ten, no other team can say that. SPM did it. They did their homework."

Hinchcliffe continued, "The Arrow Electronics car was just killer. It was fast, but it was consistent. Josef [Newgarden] had the quicker lap time but we had the consistency over the four laps. The Honda power was incredible too. It's just crazy to think about where we were a year ago, and now my first-ever pole comes at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a year out from what happened last year, in the 100th running of the biggest race in history. To get the Verizon Pole Award here, it's just so special. I've come close twice, I've been second twice, been robbed. That's what I was just joking about with Josef. I know how he felt and I kind of felt bad, but not that bad. I was okay with it. I'm just really happy for the Arrow boys and all the SPM teams."

Newgarden admitted frustration for narrowly missing the pole, but he still feels confident ahead of the race. "I was like 'what is going on, this thing's super quick!' It's the quickest the car's been all month," Newgarden said of his run. "It was a good time to peak. This is the pinnacle, this is the greatest event that you can be a part of in racing so it's just cool to be here. I was so happy to see our speed on that first lap and I got really hopeful that it might be enough to hang on but it wasn't. I'm happy for James (Hinchcliffe). It was a great run by them and Schmidt Peterson Motorsports has done a fantastic job. We lost the battle today but I'm hoping we can win next weekend."

Ryan Hunter-Reay completes the front row, with Townsend Bell, Carlos Munoz, Will Power, Mikhail Aleshin, Simon Pagenaud, and HelioCastroneves rounding out the Fast Nine shootout.

Indianapolis