Lexington, OH – After three consecutive bad results, Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay tried to steer his championship run in the right direction by capturing pole position for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. Getting pole has to be only the start, as he finds himself trailing Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves by 69 points for the championship. 

It was Hunter-Reay’s third pole of the year and he hopes to repeat his earlier performance at Barber Motorsports Park in which he led 53 of the 90 laps, eventually leading to victory. 

Being on pole is crucial at Mid-Ohio as it’s a tough track to pass at. The winner of the last six races since the IndyCar unification has come from the starting six. 

“There’s certainly a lot of weight placed on qualifying here,” said Hunter-Reay. “It’s crucial to be up towards the front…it’s tough to get that run, unless you experience lap traffic.”

Castroneves’ teammate Will Power will start second and is attempting to capture his past glory and end his winless drought that has reached 24 races, dating back to April 2012 at the São Paolo Indy 300.

“Definitely would love to get a win. We’ll be doing everything possible,” said Power. 

On the second row is Chip Ganassi’s Scott Dixon and Hunter-Reay’s teammate Marco Andretti. Dixon is on a red hot streak of three consecutive victories at Pocono and capturing both races in Toronto and hopes his success continues. Dixon has dominated the Mid-Ohio track winning four of the last six races, so he will be the one to watch tomorrow. 

Andretti sits fourth in the driver’s championship, one point behind Hunter-Reay. He has not tasted victory yet this year, but has stuck in the race thanks to eleven top-10 finishes.

Rounding out the top six are two Chip Ganassi drivers in Charlie Kimball and Dario Franchitti. Kimball didn’t participate last year at Mid-Ohio after fracturing his finger during testing; while Franchitti is a former winner in 2010 and has been on the podium five times. 

As for the championship race, Castroneves didn’t have a great qualifying session and will start 15th on the grid. Starting 15th wasn’t too much of a surprise considering the Penske team was frantically tweaking his car during the morning practice session. Dixon trails Castroneves by 29 points.

The lone Canadian in the field, Andretti Autosport’s James Hinchcliffe was the only member of his team to not make it into part two of the qualifying session and will go off in 13th barring any engine penalties.

There will be two drivers making their IndyCar debut this weekend in Dale Coyne’s James Davison and Barracuda Racing’s Luca Filippi. Davison is a third-generation driver from Australia and will be starting 17th; while Filippi comes from the Formula One ladder with plenty of GP2 experience and he will start from the back of the grid in 24th after causing a red flag during the qualifying session. 

The Honda Indy 200 goes off at 3:40 ET tomorrow on the NBC Sports Network and on Sportsnet. For more information throughout the event at Mid-Ohio follow @david_miller11 on Twitter.