Graham Rahal will start fifth, alongside leading rookie Raphael Matos, but one of the other stories of qualifying was the presence of EJ Viso who, like Matos, recorded his best start on an oval. After a season of monumental bad luck, the Venezuelan will start seventh for HVM Racing, alongside Hideki Mutoh.

"I think we did a good job," Viso noted, "This little achievement shows that testing is very important and, obviously, the development we did here a couple of weeks ago is paying off right now. It's also important to qualify close to the front at this track, being one of the most difficult tracks to overtake on - and being such a criminal track last year in the race. Less than ten cars finished, and that means that were many accidents so, obviously, you want to be as close to the front as possible to have fewer risks in front of you."

While Viso was higher up than expected, AGR veterans Marco Andretti and Tony Kanaan will roll off from 16th and 17th respectively.

Mario Moraes was uninjured in the only accident of the day, when he spun his #5 KV Racing Technology car off turn four in final practice.

Firestone has a new tyre specification for Richmond, which was developed from a tyre test at the track last autimn. The Firehawk spec features a new carcass construction designed to reduce understeer over the course of a long run, and is paired with new compound formulas for all four tyre positions.