Scott Dixon usurped a Team Penske 1-2-3 in the Toronto IndyCar qualifying session to claim his first pole position in almost a year.

The Chip Ganassi Racing driver elected to go for a late surge in the Fast Six, setting a final quickest lap of 59.9073 seconds.

The lap represents his first pole since Mid Ohio at the beginning of August last year.

Helio Castroneves held pole until the dying seconds but finished 0.0352s down on Dixon, ahead of Penske team-mate Simon Pagenaud who produced a storming lap on the harder ‘black’ tyres to finish third.

Will Power, Sebastien Bourdais and the sole Honda-powered contender of hometown hero James Hinchcliffe rounded out the top six.

Conor Daly was arguably the star of the session, finishing third in his group before running in the top six for much of the Fast 12 session. He was unlucky to miss out on the top six but will start the race in a promising seventh.

Juan Pablo Montoya shunted in second practice and struggled to set up his Penske Dallara-Chevrolet in third practice, but made up enough to get through into the Fast 12 and complete a lap for ninth.

Iowa race winner Josef Newgarden and Tony Kanaan were also disappointed to miss out on the top six and instead will start eighth and 12th respectively.

Remarkably, all four of the Andretti drivers failed to progress through the group stages, struggling in their Dallara-Hondas alongside Graham Rahal and the AJ Foyt pair.

STARTING GRID

Dixon takes first pole of 2016 for Toronto Indycar race