Long Beach USC: Scott Pruett puts Ganassi Riley-Ford on pole

Pruett waited until his final lap to produce a best time of 1m15.325s in the Ganassi Riley Ford that he shares with Memo Rojas, and he looked secure in the top spot until Negri delivered his response just before the chequered flag.

The Michael Shank Riley driver ultimately fell short, but the margin between the pair was just 0.041 seconds.

Christian Fittipaldi spent the early part of the session trading best laps with Pruett, but began to fade from pole contention as the pace picked up.

His fastest time was still good enough for third on the grid, while OAK Racing's strategy of keeping Olivier Pla in the garage for the middle phase of the session paid off when the Frenchman made a late jump to fourth.

Meanwhile, a great lap from Jan Magnussen earned the pole for the Dane and team-mate Antonio Garcia in the GT Le Mans class.

Magnussen was the only driver to dip under the 1m18s mark when he dragged his Corvette C7.R around the track in 1m17.939s. He will start the race from ninth overall.

His class-leading lap was 0.152s quicker than the previous benchmark set by BMW's Bill Auberlen, who finished up second-fastest in class ahead of stablemate Dirk Mueller.

The session was interrupted by just one red flag, which was triggered by Johannes van Overbeek spinning in the Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD.

Pos  Cl    Drivers             Team/Car                    Time       Gap    
 1.  P     Pruett/Rojas        Ganassi Riley-Ford          1m15.325s         
 2.  P     Pew/Negri           Shank Riley-Ford            1m15.366s  +0.041s
 3.  P     Barbosa/Fittipaldi  Action Express Corvette DP  1m15.571s  +0.246s
 4.  P     Pla/Yacaman         OAK Morgan-Nissan           1m15.668s  +0.343s
 5.  P     Taylor/Taylor       Taylor Corvette DP          1m15.743s  +0.418s
 6.  P     Westbrook/Valiante  Spirit Corvette DP          1m15.952s  +0.627s
 7.  P     Brown/van Overbeek  Extreme Speed HPD           1m17.129s  +1.804s
 8.  P     Sharp/Dalziel       Extreme Speed HPD           1m17.833s  +2.508s
 9.  GTLM  Magnussen/Garcia    Corvette                    1m17.939s  +2.614s
10.  GTLM  Auberlen/Priaulx    RLL BMW                     1m18.091s  +2.766s