Bourdais takes San Jose pole

The Newman/Haas Racing team sent Bourdais out just as cloud cover drifted across to tame track temperatures to perfection, and he recorded a stunning 48.989 second lap, an average of 106.040mph.

Second quickest was AJ Allmendinger who recorded 49.264 seconds, while his Forsythe Championship Racing team-mate Paul Tracy was third - but had his quickest lap docked for interference with Dan Clarke's flyer. It matters little to the Canadian as he booked his front row slot by being quickest yesterday.

Cristiano da Matta's revival continued, jumping up to fourth fastest (third with Tracy's 'penalty') but his RuSPORT team-mate Justin Wilson had the qualifying session from hell. He understeered into a tyre barrier in the 10 min pre-qualifying session and so the team had to prepare his spare car. His final flyer vaulted him from last up to 12th.

Another man who understeered into the tyre wall in that session was Alex Tagliani. Team Australia doesn't have a spare so he will rely on yesterday's qualifying time to put him 13th on the grid.

Team-mate Will Power bounced back from his shunt yesterday to grab a great sixth on the grid. The next highest rookie is CTE Racing-HVM's Clarke who was ninth fastest, albeit ahead of his team-mate Nelson Philippe.

Combined qualifying times:

Pos  Driver              Team              Time
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas     48.989
 2.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe        49.810
 3.  AJ Allmendinger     Forsythe        49.264
 4.  Cristiano da Matta  RuSPORT         49.659
 5.  Oriol Servia        PKV             49.813
 6.  Will Power          Team Australia  49.867
 7.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman/Haas     49.887
 8.  Andrew Ranger       Conquest        49.962
 9.  Dan Clarke          CTE-HVM         50.161
10.  Mario Dominguez     Dale Coyne      50.215
11.  Nelson Philippe     CTE-HVM         50.312
12.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT         50.341
13.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia  50.373
14.  Charles Zwolsman    Conquest        50.435
15.  Katherine Legge     PKV             50.473
16.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne      50.838
17.  Nicky Pastorelli    Rocketsports    51.628