James Hinchcliffe finished quickest in the first part of IndyCar qualifying for the 100th Indianapolis 500 to cement a fairytale return to the Brickyard.

The 29-year-old Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports driver had a horrific crash during practice a year ago and was forced him to sit out the rest of the season.

But the Canadian pumped in a storming 230.946mph average to top the timesheets on Saturday in his Dallara-Honda.

The legendary race’s unique qualifying format requires drivers to set four consecutive flying laps to form an aggregated total, with Saturday’s times determining which drivers will fight for positions 10-33 and which will go into the Fast Nine pole shootout on Sunday.

Experienced part-timer Townsend Bell was quickest after each driver had completed their single guaranteed qualifying attempt, but when the drivers hit the track for further runs with just over an hour to go in the shortened session following downpours earlier in the day, the times began plummeting.

Helio Castroneves had been on the border of the Fast Nine positions when a series of consistent laps covered by just 0.2s put him top.

But minutes later Hinchcliffe pipped Castroneves by 0.3s in the combined laptimes.

In the dying minutes it was Will Power in the Team Penske Dallara-Chevrolet and Ryan Hunter-Reay in the Honda-powered Andretti entry who looked to challenge the top spot but both finished 0.1s off Hinchcliffe’s pace.

With Hinchcliffe leading the way ahead of Hunter-Reay and Power, the crucial top nine was rounded out by Castroneves, Bell, Josef Newgarden, a final flying lap from Mikhail Aleshin for seventh, Carlos Munoz and championship leader Simon Pagenaud.

The result means that five Hondas and four Chevys will compete for pole on Sunday.

After Max Chilton’s crash in practice, the qualifying session’s only accident involved another British driver.

Pippa Mann suffered a rear wing end fence failure on her first flying lap as she entered Turn 2, which caused a snap of oversteer that launched her into the wall.

While the damage to her Dale Coyne Racing Dallara-Honda could have been worse, the team was unable to repair it before the end of the session.

Chilton was also unable to put up a qualifying time following his practice crash.

SATURDAY QUALIFYING RESULTS

Dixon misses out on ‘Fast Nine’ as Hinchcliffe tops opening Indy 500 qualifying day