Madison, Ill. ? Short ovals seem to agree with Gil de Ferran, who won his fourth IRL pole of the year Saturday.

De Ferran ran a best lap of 175.120 mph at 1.25-mile Gateway International Raceway, barely beating out series points leader Sam Hornish Jr. for the top starting spot in today’s Gateway 250. All four of de Ferran’s poles have come on tracks shorter than 1 1/2 miles.

“I call the short tracks handling tracks and we have a very good handling car,” de Ferran said. “That component of the mix really makes up for a lot more lap time on this type of track than it does on a mile-and-a-half or two-mile oval.

“When you have a good, consistent car you can just keep pushing the limit as a driver, more, more more, more.”

Hornish, who leads the standings by four points over Helio Castroneves with three races to go, was timed at 174.959. He finished just ahead of Castroneves (174.939), de Ferran’s Team Penske teammate.

“It seems like I always wish it was a one-car team,” Hornish said. “You’re always in the middle and you beat one and get beat by the other one. It’s kind of a tag team once in a while.”

Hornish started from the pole position in last year’s race, when the field was set by the standings after qualifying was rained out.

“It’s certainly not a done deal, by any means,” de Ferran said. “There’s still a lot of work to do. So, I was happy for about 30 seconds when I got the pole, then I started to think about tomorrow.”

Rookie Vitor Meira completes the second row, Jeff Ward and Laurent Redon will be in the third row, and Felipe Giaffone and Robbie Buhl will start from the fourth. Defending champion Al Unser Jr. had the 16th-best qualifying speed in the 25-car field at 171.528, and will start from the outside of the eighth row.

IRL rookie Tomas Scheckter will not race after missing a scheduled technical briefing on Friday, and his position on the Red Bull Cheever Racing team is in limbo. Eddie Cheever Jr., the owner of the team, replaced Scheckter with fellow rookie Buddy Rice.

Scheckter, 21, the son of former Formula One champion Jody Scheckter, wrecked six cars in races.

“Technically, he’s in breach of contract,” Cheever said.