First pole for Franchitti and Acura

The Andretti Green driver snatched pole from the Porsche RS Spyder of Ryan Briscoe with his final effort, but the two Penske-run Porsches also made the top three.

"I'd love to tell you that it was the strategy but I was struggling to get a clean lap through traffic," said Franchitti.

"On a street course and in a shorter race, track position is important. It will be nice to lead into Turn 1 as well as out of it."

Dindo Capello took pole position for the LMP1 category in the lead Audi R10 which he shares with Allan McNish, but the Italian's best lap was eight tenths of a second slower than Franchitti's overall pole.

The Audis managed to take a surprise 1-2 finish recently at St Petersburg, but Capello is not expecting a repeat performance around the tight Long Beach circuit.

"Tomorrow it won't be so easy to keep the pace of the LMP2 cars, which is completely different from St. Petersburg," he said.

"It's difficult to feel the grip. Every corner has different grip and our car is very difficult to drive because we have such great torque."

The second Audi of Emanuele Pirro and Marco Werner is further back in sixth place, with the Acura of David Brabham, Stefan Johansson and Duncan Dayton in fifth.

Oliver Gavin took pole position in the two-car GT1 class, while Mika Salo took the GT2 pole in the Risi Competizione Ferrari.

Qualifying results:

Pos  Cl    Drivers                   Car                   Time     
 1.  P2    Herta/Franchitti          Acura/ARX-01a         1:11.838 
 2.  P2    Briscoe/Maassen           Porsche RS Spyder     1:12.144 
 3.  P2    Dumas/Bernhard            Porsche RS Spyder     1:12.247 
 4.  P1    McNish/Capello            Audi R10              1:12.713 
 5.  P2    Brabham/Johansson/Dayton  Acura/ARX-01a         1:12.844 
 6.  P1    Werner/Pirro              Audi R10              1:12.911 
 7.  P2    Diaz/Fernandez            Lola/B06-43/Acura     1:13.148 
 8.  P2    Leitzinger/Wallace        Porsche RS Spyder     1:13.417 
 9.  P2    Smith/Dyson               Porsche RS Spyder     1:14.006 
10.  P1    Lewis/McMurry             Lola/EX257 AER        1:17.158 
11.  GT1   Beretta/Gavin             Corvette C6.R         1:18.145 
12.  P1    Field/Berry/Field         Creation/CA06H/Judd   1:18.337 
13.  GT1   O'Connell/Magnussen       Corvette C6.R         1:18.364 
14.  GT2   Melo/Salo                 Ferrari 430           1:20.916 
15.  GT2   Law/Long                  Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   1:21.209 
16.  GT2   van Overbeek/Bergmeister  Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   1:21.239 
17.  GT2   Bergmeister/Muller        Ferrari 430GT         1:21.392 
18.  GT2   Henzler/Liddell           Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   1:21.563 
19.  GT2   Jonsson/Lazzaro           Ferrari 430GT         1:21.620 
20.  GT2   Kelleners/Milner          Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   1:21.749 
21.  GT2   Farnbacher/Tafel          Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   1:21.804 
22.  GT2   Hand/Auberlen             Panoz Esperante GTLM  1:22.083 
23.  GT2   Smith/Maxwell/Sellers     Panoz Esperante GTLM  1:22.620 
24.  P1    Graf/Pickett              Lola B06/10 AER       1:25.014 
25.  GT2   Pappas/Borcheller         Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   1:25.211 
26.  P2    Bach/Devlin               Lola/B07-40/Mazda      No Time