By Andrew Cutler
September 18 2010

The drivers from Team Penske locked everyone else out at the front of the grid during qualifications for the Indy Japan 300, to be held at midnight ET/5am GMT on Sunday. Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe will share Row One, with season championship leader Will Power grabbing the inside of Row Two.

The bad news for Power is that his one remaining title rival, Ganassi Racing's Dario Franchitti, will be along side him on the outside of Row Two.

The 1.5 mile Twin Ring Motegi circut has historically proven to be a somewhat difficult track on which to pull off a pass, so starting spots tend to mean more here than at most ovals.

During his post-qualy interview, Castroneves was somewhat vauge as to whether or not he (& Briscoe) would help Power in his championship hunt or go for the win himself. “We're going to try to get the win for Team Penske, but the big deal in the points is tomorrow for the race. We're going to make sure that we just execute. We don't need to panic, we just need to execute. So the ball is in our court now and just we can make it happen.”

A trio of Andretti Autosport drivers - Andretti, Kanaan and Hunter-Reay - will line up just behind the top four qualifiers. The best qualifier out of the three Japanese drivers (Roger Yasukawa is running a 'one-off' race for Conquest) is former F1 pilot Takuma Sato, who will start tenth.

Here is the complete starting grid: http://www.indycar.com:8080/var/assets/IndyJapan300startinglineup.pdf