Qualifying for race one was held in the morning of June 3. Due to time constraints, the session consisted of only what would be round 1 of a normal IndyCar qualifying session. Initially, it appeared that Hélio Castroneves qualified first, but was ruled to have failed to slow for a yellow flag, resulting in his fastest time being disallowed. As such, Graham Rahal inherited the pole position with a new track-record time of 1:13.9681 at an average speed of 114.37 mph (184.07 km/h). Castroneves still started second, as his second fastest lap still put him the fastest of his group. Takuma Sato, fresh off his Indy 500 victory, qualified third, with his teammate Alexander Rossi fourth. James Hinchcliffe rounded out the top five.