TORONTO, ON, July 13, 2013 - It was looking good for a Dario Franchitti sweep of the Verizon P1 Award for the Honda Indy Toronto doubleheader when he set the fastest lap of the weekend on the 1.7-mile, 11-turn street course in the first group of qualifying for Race 2 at 59.1905 seconds.

 

That was until Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon put together a blistering lap of 58.9686 seconds in Group 2 for his first Verizon P1 Award of the season.

 

So the Honda-powered cars will share Row 1 for the 85-lap race July 14 (2 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network) that will have a rolling start. Race 1, with Franchitti and Sebastien Bourdais on the front row, will have the first standing start in IZOD IndyCar Series history.

 

"The lap just came together; I left a little on the table yesterday," said Dixon, who moved into a tie with Danny Sullivan for 15th on the all-time Indy car list with his 19th pole and his first since Belle Isle in 2012. "The guys put in some work on the car last night, making a few adjustments, and it’s definitely got the speed to drive today.

 

"It’s been a little while since we’ve been on pole for a road/street course, so definitely very happy about."

 

It was the first front-row sweep for Chip Ganassi Racing (Franchitti and Dixon) since Homestead-Miami Speedway on October 2010. Six days ago at Pocono Raceway, Dixon led a Chip Ganassi Racing sweep of the podium (Charlie Kimball was second and Franchitti third) in the Pocono INDYCAR 400 Fueled by Sunoco for his first victory last August 2012.

 

"The more people run, the more rubber goes down, so we were expecting the second session to be quicker," Franchitti said. "We’re very happy to have both Target cars on the front row and Scott did a great job to get the pole.”

 

Under the doubleheader qualifying format for Race 2, the remainder of the cars from the pole sitter’s qualifying group will occupy the odd-numbered positions on the starting grid, ranked by lap time, beginning with third. Even-numbered starting positions will be filled by the other group, ranked by lap time, starting with second.

 

Series championship points leader Helio Castroneves and reigning series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay qualified on Row 2. Will Power and Tony Kanaan qualified on Row 3. Both races pay full points to the competitors.Both races pay full points to the competitors.