Kanaan and Gordon put AGR on front row at Indy.

Tony Kanaan and Robby Gordon placed their Andretti Green Racing Dallara-Honda's on the front row in a cold and blustery "Pole Day" qualifying session on Sunday for the 87th running of the Indianapolis 500.

Gordon, substituting for the injured Dario Franchitti, was the first driver to break the 230-mile per-hour barrier in Sunday's rescheduled six-hour qualifying period at the legendary 2.5-mile four turn, only for teammate Kanaan to better his time later in the afternoon.

Kanaan's 231.006mph average qualifying speed appeared to be good enough to secure the pole for the Brazilian until just 90 minutes remained in the day, when double defending race winner Helio Castroneves edged his countryman for the honors. The 2001, 2002 Indy 500 winner set an average speed of 231.725mph over his qualifying run to safely secure the pole, relegating Kanaan to the middle of row one and Gordon to the outside.

"The whole team did a great job," said Kanaan, who qualified as the fastest Honda runner despite wearing a splint on his left arm to protect the bones he broke last month in Motegi. "I have to thank Michael [Andretti] and [co-owners] Kim [Green] and Kevin [Savoree] for giving me all their support. The car was not the way I wanted it this morning, but the team made a couple of changes this afternoon and ended up giving me a great car."

In addition to Kanaan and Gordon, Andretti Green rookie Dan Wheldon was an early pace setter and also sat on provisional pole for a while before the day fifth in the starting field.

Sunday was a good day for Honda despite missing out on the prestigious Indy 500 pole to arch-rivals Toyota as no less than eight Honda powered drivers comfortably made the field with speeds that are highly unlikely to be 'bumped' during next weekend's Bubble Day qualifying session.

Former "500" race winner Kenny Brack ensured that there would be four Honda powered machines in the first two rows as he set sixth fastest time in his Team Rahal Dallara-Honda while rookie Roger Yasukawa, veteran Michael Andretti, former series Champion Greg Ray and the late arriving Shinji Nakano also qualified on the first five rows of the grid with their Honda engines.

With only the second Team Rahal entry of Jimmy Vasser yet to make it into the field from the Honda camp, several teams are looking at adding an extra car to the ones already qualified in order to give their engine supplier an even better chance of winning on May 25th.