INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – While Danica Patrick and her team agonized over whether to make another qualifying attempt Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony Kanaan waited nervously.

Even when Patrick rolled her car back to the garage, done for the day and a disappointing fourth among Sunday’s 22 qualifiers for the May 29 race, Kanaan wasn’t able to relax.

He sat restlessly in his car as several other drivers took unsuccessful shots at knocking him off the top spot in the final hour of pole qualifying.

In the end, though, Kanaan held onto the prestigious pole.

Kanaan, whose best previous Indy start in three tries was second in 2003, has finished third and second in the race the last two years.

He was third qualifier Sunday, posting a four-lap, 10-mile qualifying average of 227.566 mph on the historic 2-mile oval. Kanaan then had to wait through nearly six hours while other drivers tried to knock him off his perch.

Two-time Indy Racing League champion Sam Hornish Jr., who had qualified 11th early in the day at 225.847, withdrew that speed and re-qualified at 227.273, taking the middle spot on the first of what will be 11 three-car rows for the race.

Dario Franchitti, one of Kanaan’s AGR teammates, also gave it a shot, withdrawing a 226.475 that was good for seventh at the time, and improved to 226.873, good for sixth.

The final serious pole contender to take a shot at Kanaan was two-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, Hornish’s Marlboro Team Penske teammate, who withdrew a 227.077 that was fourth on the grid, and slipped to fifth at 226.927 in the final 10 minutes of the session.

Scott Sharp, a former pole winner and another early qualifier, wound up third at 227.176, while Patrick managed to overcome the mistake on the first lap that resulted in a speed of 224.920.

She backed that up with three of the fastest laps of the qualifying and an average of 227.004 that gave her fourth place on the tentative grid.

The 23-year-old Patrick, a rookie, is the fourth woman to qualify for the Indy 500 and the only female entered this year. The best previous qualifying effort by a woman was sixth by Lyn St. James in 1994.

“I feel like I wasted a pole car,” lamented Patrick, who had a lap of 229.880 in the morning practice after being among the fastest drivers all week. “But, maybe I saved it, too.”

“I don’t know if it was my mistake or not. Whether an itty-bitty gust of wind or the tires weren’t up to temp, God knows. But it’s not easy to save an oversteer.”

“I never celebrate when people make mistakes or crash because I want to beat the best,” Kanaan said. “She made a mistake and I didn’t. That’s the way you win races and the way you win pole positions.”

After some practice later in the day, team co-owner Bobby Rahal made the decision not to withdraw her speed and try again.

“I don’t think we could have been consistent enough for the pole,” said Rahal, who won the Indy 500 in 1986. “The car was not quite there.”

Kanaan’s other two AGR teammates, Dan Wheldon, the current IRL points leader, and Bryan Herta were also among Sunday’s qualifiers.

The only accident of the day came when rookie Ryan Briscoe crashed on the second lap of a qualifying attempt, nearly turning over his car. He was not injured and will have another chance to make the race in further time trials next Saturday and Sunday.

The new qualifying rules mandated that 11 cars would qualify each of the first three days of time trials, with the fourth day reserved for bumping the slowest cars from the field. Saturday’s opening round of qualifying was rained out, so 22 drivers qualified on Sunday.

Alex Barron, Jaques Lazier and Patrick Carpentier were all bumped out, but Barron later got back in as the slowest qualifier of the day at 221.053.

AP-ES-05-15-05 2108EDT