Bourdais Leads Newman/Haas 1-2

The reigning champion got the better of an exciting duel with Newman/Haas teammate Oriol Servia, which saw the pair trade fastest time throughout the 35-minute session.

The Illinois-based team have been in a class of their own all weekend, with Bourdais having set the pace in every practice session except for the short pre-qualifying warm-up, which fell to Servia.

Forsythe Championship Racing's Paul Tracy will start tomorrow's race from third on the grid despite having to forfeit his best time as penance for causing a red-flag stoppage when he spun and stalled at Turn Six in the early stages.

The Canadian will be flanked on the second row by RuSPORT's AJ Allmendinger, who vaulted up the timing charts in the second half of qualifying having languished in the lower midfield for much of the weekend.

The young Californian will be aiming for a solid podium result to atone for his costly faux pas in the last two races, which have provoked an almost unhealthy degree of introspection and self-deprecation on his part.

Mario Dominguez produced one of his better qualifying efforts of the season to line up fifth in the second Forsythe entry, while Nelson Philippe, who has been one of the stars of the meeting so far, took sixth.

The just-turned-19-year-old took to the run-off area at Turn Three early on in the session but rebounded to claim the best starting position of his Champ Car career.

Timo Glock (Rocketsports Racing) and Bjorn Wirdheim (HVM) will form an all-rookie fourth row, while a slightly out-of-sorts Justin Wilson could manage only ninth in the second RuSPORT car. Jimmy Vasser (PKV Racing) rounded out the top ten.

The session was interrupted by a series of red flags signalling spins and accidents around the unforgiving street circuit.

Dale Coyne Racing's Ricardo Sperafico was impressively quick in practice this morning but it counted for nothing after he clouted the wall at Turn Four ten minutes into qualifying and broke his right-front wheel.

Fellow rookie Andrew Ranger brought the session to a slightly premature conclusion when he nosed his Mi-Jack Conquest Racing Lola into the tyre barrier at Turn Six, continuing a nightmare weekend for the 18-year-old French-Canadian.

Compatriot Alex Tagliani also faces a long race tomorrow after his Team Australia Lola's suspension failed, apparently due to duress over the severe bumps of the 1.5-mile street course, which taxes shock absorbers and springs to the limit as the cars traverse assorted light rail lines and manhole covers.

With overtaking opportunities at a premium on the narrow, wall-lined track, there is a high likelihood of incidents and full-course yellows tomorrow afternoon. Patience, and starting from the first couple of rows of the grid, are likely to be the keys to success.

Pos  Driver              Team              Time            Laps
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman Haas       54.243           14
 2.  Oriol Servia        Newman Haas       54.305 + 0.062   17
 3.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe          54.570 + 0.327   14
 4.  A.J. Allmendinger   RuSPORT           54.604 + 0.361   13
 5.  Mario Dominguez     Forsythe          54.654 + 0.411   22
 6.  Nelson Philippe     Mi-Jack Conquest  54.878 + 0.635   14
 7.  Timo Glock          Rocketsports      54.895 + 0.652   15
 8.  Bjorn Wirdheim      HVM, Inc.         55.054 + 0.811   12
 9.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT           55.093 + 0.850   11
10.  Jimmy Vasser        PKV               55.414 + 1.171   15
11.  Andrew Ranger       Mi-Jack Conquest  55.434 + 1.191    5
12.  Rodolfo Lavin       HVM, Inc.         55.449 + 1.206   18
13.  Cristiano da Matta  PKV               55.773 + 1.530   22
14.  Ricardo Sperafico   Dale Coyne        55.972 + 1.729    4
15.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    Rocketsports      56.019 + 1.776   20
16.  Ronnie Bremer       Dale Coyne        56.452 + 2.209    4
17.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia    56.616 + 2.373    3
18.  Marcus Marshall     Team Australia    57.687 + 3.444    18