Jousse takes pole for Roma

Jousse raced off against Robert Doornbos of Corinthians in the head-to-head, single-lap final, but outpaced him emphatically around the lap, taking top spot by 0.599s.

Doornbos really struggled on his lap, having to get right out of the throttle at the Bit-Kurve, which cost him about four-tenths of that.

"I'm very happy for me and the team," said Jousse. "It's good to start from the top for the first race, and I was surprised to be so quick in the final. I improved through every step of qualifying."

Doornbos, who was on pole for AC Milan the last time Superleague was at the Eifel venue in 2008, said: "My mechanics changed the engine before qualifying [he had spun off in first practice], so this was the best way to pay them back. I just didn't have enough tyre pressure in the final, they weren't warm enough, so I had a little wiggle coming down the hill there."

In the first semi final, Jousse defeated the weekend pacesetter, Yelmer Buurman of AC Milan, with a duel that swayed between the two of them around the lap.

Buurman was up by 0.02s at the first split, but Jousse was ahead by 0.068s at the second. At the finish line, where it really mattered, Jousse was faster by 0.08s.

The second semi was just as thrilling, with Davide Rigon (Anderlecht) almost not getting on to the track at all when his Azerti team struggled to fire his car. This meant he was well behind Doornbos on-the-road on their flying lap.

Rigon was down by 0.2s at the first split, but turned that around to lead by 0.011s at the second. But Doornbos turned it on its head once more, winning by 0.09s.

In the quarter-final stages, Buurman beat Franck Perera (Flamengo) by 0.472s, but that didn't tell half the story, as they were neck-and-neck until the final sector. Perera was up by 0.014s at the first split, but Buurman was 0.005s quicker by the second, and then rammed his advantage home as Perera struggled to get his car stopped for the Veedol chicane.

"I was on the limit," admitted Perera. "I was really fighting with my brakes and lost the rear of the car approaching the final chicane."

Doornbos cruised to victory over Tristan Gommendy (Galatasaray) by over a second, after Gommendy ran wide over the grass on the exit of the Mercedes Arena, which cost him the best part of nine-tenths of a second. "I had way too much oversteer," said Gommendy.

In the next run, Rigon didn't need to complete a proper flyer once James Walker coasted his Liverpool car into the very first corner, suffering a brake malady. "The pedal went straight to the floor," said Walker. "Even coming out of the garage, it wouldn't stop."

The last quarter final provided the closest margin between drivers: Jousse defeated Chris van der Drift by just 0.088s. During the lap, van der Drift had been up by 0.062s at the first split, but he gave away 0.107s by split two, and wasn't able to recover enough through the final couple of corners. "It was a bit of a messy lap, I coulda gone quicker," admitted van der Drift.

In the earlier pre-qualifying phase, Group A was labelled the 'group of death' such was the quality of its competitors, and was topped by Doornbos on a 1m44.223s, ahead of van der Drift, Walker and Perera.

Lyon's Sebastien Bourdais missed out on the knock-out phases by just 0.018s, knocked out by Perera in the closing seconds of the session, and then added injury to insult by ploughing into the tyres at Turn 6, the RTL-Kurve, when he tried too hard on his final effort.

"We were in and then, suddenly, we were out," said Bourdais. "It was very close, only a couple of hundredths. I think we left a little performance on the table."

Pre-event favourite Max Wissel, who was fastest in first practice for FC Basel, also fell at this hurdle and was livid about it: "I don't know what's gone wrong, I'm sixth, that is all."

Alvaro Parente (FC Porto) and Franck Montagny (Bordeaux) also fell out, but the big news of the session was points leader Craig Dolby, who will start last for Tottentham Hotspur. "What's to say?" he asked. "This means I'll have two reverse grid races tomorrow."

Group B was effectively curtailed early when Jarama top dog John Martin spun off at the Ford-Kurve, blaming dirt on the track, but Buurman had already set his fastest lap of 1m44.175s - the quickest of the weekend so far despite a slide at the final corner - to top the session ahead of fellow knock-out phase qualifiers Rigon, Jousse and Gommendy.

Pos  Driver               Team                        Time
 1.  Julien Jousse        AS Roma                     1m44.401s
 2.  Robert Doornbos      Corinthians                 1m45.000s
 3.  Davide Rigon         RSC Anderlecht              1m45.334s
 4.  Yelmer Buurman       AC Milan                    1m44.912s
 5.  Chris van der Drift  Olympiacos                  1m44.983s
 6.  James Walker         Liverpool FC                1m57.510s
 7.  Tristan Gommendy     Galatasaray                 1m46.184s
 8.  Franck Perera        Flamengo                    1m45.244s
 9.  Narain Karthikeyan   PSV Eindhoven               1m44.637s
10.  Sebastien Bourdais   Olympique Lyonnais          1m44.433s
11.  Borja García         Sporting Clube de Portugal  1m44.776s
12.  Max Wissel           FC Basel                    1m44.455s
13.  John Martin          Beijing Guoan               1m44.896s
14.  Alvaro Parente       FC Porto                    1m44.670s
15.  Marcos Martinez      Sevilla FC                  1m45.779s
16.  Franck Montagny      Girondins de Bordeaux       1m44.828s
17.  Maria de Villota     Atletico de Madrid          1m46.151s
18.  Craig Dolby          Tottenham Hotspur           1m44.877s