Bourdais loses pole

Following the first day's qualifying session, Champ Car officials announced Bourdais was being penalised for blocking a competitor's lap during a qualifying session. The infraction cost the Frenchman his fastest lap, along with a championship point and a guaranteed starting spot in the front row (which would have been a record fifth in a row).

Tracy left the track with the second-best time of the day in his pocket after an action-packed Thursday at the 2.106-mile temporary road course at Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport. His top lap of 58.361sec (129.909mph) left him just 0.015sec behind frontrunner Bourdais, who is gunning for his third pole of the season.

The Forsythe Racing Canadian driver earns a championship point for leading the session, boosting his total to 80 for the year and guaranteeing himself a front-row starting spot for Saturday afternoon's race. The result marks the first time this season that Tracy will start a Champ Car race from the front row. It also moves Bruno Junqueira into the second spot and promotes Ryan Hunter-Reay to the third position on the first-day grid.

Bourdais nearly etched his name in the Champ Car record books by leading the qualifying session, as a front row grid position would have been his fifth in a row to start the year, making him the first driver in the CART/Champ Car era (1979-present) to start each of the first five races from the front row. He will have another chance to break the mark on Friday as the final grid will be set with a final 35-minute qualifying session on the Burke layout.

The first-round qualifying session was capped by a flurry of activity that saw the pole change hands five times in the last five minutes. Tracy led the session with 10 minutes to go when a red flag flew to allow the Champ Car Safety Team to go repair a tire barrier that had been knocked askew by a passing car, sending everyone back to pit lane and setting the stage for a last-minute shootout.

The session was restarted with five minutes to go and Bourdais immediately took advantage of his first pit position to gain access to a clear race track. He moved himself into second on the grid with his first lap, triggering a game of last-lap leapfrog that saw Hunter-Reay, Carpentier, Junqueira and finally Bourdais claim rights to the pole. But once Bourdais was found to have blocked Hunter-Reay, which cost him his lap and Carpentier was found to be guilty of the same violation against Alex Tagliani, Tracy ascended to the pole.

Bourdais ended up fourth while rookie A.J. Allmendinger continued his recent run of strong qualifying sessions by slotting into the fifth spot. Junqueira's Newman/Haas Racing squad did yeoman work during the afternoon break after Junqueira had hard contact with the Turn Eight wall during the morning practice. The team worked through the early afternoon to repair the car instead of simply rolling out the backup car, and gave Junqueira the chance to get the second spot.