Bourdais leads opening practice

The Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing pilot, hot from a second place at Le Mans, and a dominant performance in the Champ Car test at Road America on Tuesday, lapped the 2.106-mile Burke Lakefront Airport course in 57.663 seconds, an average speed of 131.481 mph.

As ever with the reigning champion, this was no flash in the pan, for his second and third fastest laps would have put him on top too.

Second fastest and a vast improvement over his calamitous weekend in Portland was Paul Tracy, who prevailed after a closely fought contest with the Team Australia pair of Simon Pagenaud and Will Power.

This event two years ago was the scene of Tracy's last Champ Car victory, and he is so far the only driver to have scored three pole positions here.

Alex Tagliani and Justin Wilson were fifth and ninth quickest for RSPORTS, between them lying Neel Jani of PKV Racing, the second Newman/Haas/Lanigan car of Graham Rahal, and Bruno Junqueira who is less than a second slower than his former teammate Bourdais.

Today's first qualifying session, unusually, runs from 1600 to 1700h local time.

Pos  Driver              Team                       Time
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas/Lanigan          57.663         
 2.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe Championship        58.168 +  0.505
 3.  Simon Pagenaud      Team Australia               58.187 +  0.524
 4.  Will Power          Team Australia               58.228 +  0.565
 5.  Alex Tagliani       RSPORTS                      58.365 +  0.702
 6.  Neel Jani           PKV Racing                   58.402 +  0.739
 7.  Graham Rahal        Newman/Haas/Lanigan          58.416 +  0.753
 8.  Bruno Junqueira     Dale Coyne Racing            58.596 +  0.933
 9.  Justin Wilson       RSPORTS                      58.604 +  0.941
10.  Robert Doornbos     Minardi Team USA             58.679 +  1.016
11.  Jan Heylen          Conquest Racing              58.710 +  1.047
12.  Oriol Servia        Forsythe Championship        58.846 +  1.183
13.  Dan Clarke          Minardi Team USA             59.088 +  1.425
14.  Ryan Dalziel        Pacific Coast Motorsports    59.381 +  1.718
15.  Tristan Gommendy    PKV Racing                   59.381 +  1.718
16.  Alex Figge          Pacific Coast Motorsports    59.768 +  2.105
17.  Katherine Legge     Dale Coyne Racing            59.954 +  2.291