Franchitti on course at Michigan.

Dario Franchitti took the first step towards completing an Indianapolis-Michigan double by notching pole position for the Firestone Indy 400 at the historic Michigan International Speedway on Saturday night.

The Briton, currently holding a diminished points advantage over form man Scott Dixon, pipped Penske's Sam Hornish Jr to top spot in a close-fought qualifying session, clocking the only sub-33secs lap to earn his first AAMCO Transmissions Pole Award of the season.

"It was a bit nerve-racking there at the end, but it's been really good," the Scot said, "It all worked out, and I've got to thank my guys. The Canadian Club crew have really built a good car. My engineers have given us a heck of a set-up so, hopefully, we'll do a good job tomorrow because that's where I've got to earn my money. We'll see if we can keep it up front."

With Dixon only qualifying seventh fastest, Franchitti has some breathing space, but the Andretti Green driver is fully expecting the Kiwi to be among his rivals on Sunday.

"We've got to do the best that we can, week in and week out, and look after things we can control - I can't control what Scott does," he explained, "I can't control if he's going to win the race or he's going to crash or he's going to have a mechanical. I've got to focus on my thing, and everybody on the Canadian Club team has to do our best and see what we end up with.

"Today was a good example of that. They gave me a heck of a car and allowed us to stick it on the pole. We had two-and-a-half hours of practice, and about two hours 25 minutes of that was spent on race set-up and only five minutes on qualifying. It was actually so short we did sort of a half qualifying sim - we didn't even get to take the simulated green flag and the yellow came out for an accident in turn four, so we didn't really get to do a full qualifying sim. But I'm feeling quite good about my race car tomorrow."

Franchitti recorded a lap of 32.9810sec around the two-mile oval, enough to keep reigning IndyCar champion Sam Hornish Jr at bay.

"It's not quite what we wanted," Hornish admitted, "The Team Penske guys and I made a decision between the first and second practices to make a couple of pretty big changes with the car. We didn't think it hurt the car that much but, running through the second practice, we couldn't find the speed we wanted. We missed on the gears a little bit, but we found the speed that we need for tomorrow, so I guess it's a good thing we did our experiment for qualifying. We feel it will make our race car better for tomorrow."

Penske team-mate Helio Castroneves, veteran Scott Sharp and Dan Wheldon rounded out the top five, with Dixon, who is attempting to win a record fourth-straight race, back in seventh behind Tomas Scheckter.

"It wasn't too bad a qualifying run, pretty much what we expected really," the Kiwi commented, "I'm not sure how much your starting position matters here as long as you are in the top ten really. People have come from even further back to win this race, and you can definitely pass if you have a good car. It would certainly be nice to continue the [winning] streak, but what is most important would be to finish ahead of Dario Franchitti for the points race."

Scheckter's sixth place represents his best start of the season.

"I'm happy because we did the best job we could do," the South African commented, "I've just got to thank the team and everybody that has been working really hard. Starting in the top ten is something I'm happy with. In practice, we showed we had a car that is good in race runs, and that's really what we need to focus on. We have a good car so we need to have a good clean race and I think we can finish well. I'm looking forward to tomorrow."

Tony Kanaan, Danica Patrick and Scheckter's Vision Racing team-mate Ed Carpenter rounded out the top ten, the Brazilian not happy with his run.

"I don't know what happened during the first attempt, but we still had the same problem during the second," he fumed, "I couldn't do anything. It's a shame because we had a good qualifying set-up for the Team 7-Eleven car. We have no morning warm-up, so we have to get the problem fixed without going back on the track, but we can definitely win here from eighth position."