Bourdais blitzes Montreal qualifying

The Frenchman secured pole with a lap of 1:20.345, but he then rubbed his rivals' noses in it when he further trimmed his lap time to 1:20.182, and finally to 1:20.005 - with an average speed of 121.897mph.

The Newman/Haas Racing driver, who crashed in this morning's free practice session, rewarded his mechanics' efforts to beat nearest championship rivals AJ Allmendinger (Forsythe Championship Racing) by 0.35 second and Justin Wilson (RuSPORT) by 0.58 seconds.

Paul Tracy's Forsythe car will start fourth after marginally beating Oriol Servia's PKV Racing entry, which had been second fastest yesterday.

Newman/Haas Racing's second car of Bruno Junqueira will be sixth on the grid.

Rookies Will Power and Dan Clarke did excellent jobs to monopolise the fourth row and outqualify their more experienced teammates at Team Australia and CTE Racing-HVM respectively.

Antonio Pizzonia will start 13th, but his Rocketsports Racing teammate Nicky Pastorelli is at the back of the grid after his driveshaft snapped before he had set a proper qualifying run.

Combined qualifying results:

Pos  Driver              Team                   Time              Laps
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman Haas            1:20.005           23
 2.  A.J. Allmendinger   Forsythe Championship  1:20.361 + 0.356   13
 3.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT                1:20.587 + 0.582   22
 4.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe Championship  1:20.669 + 0.664   24
 5.  Oriol Servia        PKV                    1:20.691 + 0.686   26
 6.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman Haas            1:20.772 + 0.767   22
 7.  Will Power          Team Australia         1:21.156 + 1.151   22
 8.  Dan Clarke          CTE HVM                1:21.555 + 1.550   21
 9.  Andrew Ranger       Mi-Jack Conquest       1:21.561 + 1.556   26
10.  Nelson Philippe     CTE HVM                1:21.725 + 1.720   30
11.  Charles Zwolsman    Mi-Jack Conquest       1:21.771 + 1.766   27
12.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia         1:21.916 + 1.911   20
13.  Antonio Pizzonia    Rocketsports           1:22.050 + 2.045   27
14.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne             1:22.096 + 2.091   23
15.  Mario Dominguez     Dale Coyne             1:22.581 + 2.576   27
16.  Katherine Legge     PKV                    1:22.902 + 2.897   30
17.  Nicky Pastorelli    Rocketsports           1:24.204 + 4.199   16