Piedrahita narrowly claims Gateway Indy Lights pole

Team Pelfrey's Juan Piedrahita earned his first career Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires pole for Saturday's race at Gateway Motorsports Park, barely edging Santi Urrutia by one one-thousandths of a second.

"I just think the tire temps came up really nicely," Piedrahita told IMS Radio of his two-lap qualifying average of 160.823mph. "We knew you gotta to be careful on the first lap not to push too card because you can end up in the wall. The team has done a great job, just very happy. ... It's been a really difficult season for us, and honestly it's not [the team's] fault, its not my fault, this is the same car we ran at Indy, same springs, same setup, everything, and now we're competitive.

"We've gotta be smart. Obviously Santi's very aggressive, I've got a lot of respect for him, but today's our day and we're going to get it done and hopefully get that win and move on."

Urrutia, who is tied for second in the championship with Colton Herta 42 points behind current points leader Kyle Kaiser, barely missed out on the bonus point that comes with the pole. He will start second, with the Andretti Autosport duo of Nico Jamin and Ryan Norman on Row 2.

Kaiser, who will clinch the title with a first- or second-place finish in Saturday night's race, will start fifth after a two-lap average of 160.229mph. Herta will start seventh. To keep the championship alive, Herta and Urrutia would need at least a third-place finish, plus one of the available bonus points for leading most laps or fastest race lap.

UP NEXT: Green flag at 7 p.m. ET.