Bourdais nabs Portland pole

Bourdais took advantage of a penalty that led to Friday leader Junqueira abandon the final session, and the Frenchman recorded a lap of 59.229sec (119.678mph) to take the top spot for Sunday's event. The pole is the second of the season for Bourdais and the seventh of his Champ Car career.

"The Newman/Haas team has been great this whole weekend for both Bruno and myself," said Bourdais. "I think we will be in good shape for tomorrow's race, because the McDonald's car is handling very well. It will all depend on the temperature tomorrow and how the tyres wear. We have plenty of sticker tyres to use, along with the alternate tyre, so it should be a good race."

Junqueira will start second for tomorrow's event by virtue of his leading Friday qualifying, but stepped out of his car after five laps of Saturday's qualifying. He received a penalty from Champ Car stewards for impeding another competitor's qualifying lap. The team abandoned qualifying in order to save tyres for the race.

"I feel that we could have been on the pole," said Junqueira. "However, after I was penalized, my team figured there was no point for me to run any more since my best lap would be taken from me and I was already guaranteed a front row start from winning the provisional pole yesterday. It is frustrating, but the PacifiCare team has worked real hard, and the car is good."

Tracy ended his run for the pole in the tyrewall. He will start third despite losing his fastest lap for bringing out the red flag with the contact, having posted a lap of 59.314sec (119.506mph) to back up the 59.295 that he had to forfeit.

"I was up 0.18sec on my last run at the split and was going for it into Turn 8, but ended up a bit wide and touched the kerb and lost it," explained Tracy. "The damage isn't bad - just broke the rear wing. I missed out on my first run with the traffic, so I aborted and came in. On my second run there was a touch of oversteer, but I'm really getting the power down well from the Ford Cosworth engine. We're good for the race."

A pair of rookies showed that they acclimated themselves well to the Portland layout as Wilson and A.J. Allmendinger earned the fourth and the fifth starting spots for tomorrow's event. Wilson earned his second top-four start of the 2004 season by carding a best lap of 59.414sec (119.305mph), leapfrogging five drivers to score the fourth position.

He was chased by Allmendinger, who sets a new Champ Car career high by starting tomorrow's event in the fifth position. Fourth in Friday qualifying, Allmendinger posted a fast lap of 59.654sec (118.825mph) to set his new personal standard.

Mario Dominguez will start sixth after making a late lap of 59.757sec (118.620mph) while 2003 Portland podium placer Alex Tagliani will slot into the seventh position by virtue of his Friday effort. Tagliani was one of six drivers that had to stand on Friday's time after failing to improve their lot during Saturday's runs.

Tagliani will be joined by Michel Jourdain Jr on the fourth row, maintaining some of the momentum gained by his Milwaukee podium with a season-best qualifying run. Jourdain put his RuSPORT machine in the eighth slot on the grid with a time of 59.922sec (118.337mph).

PKV Racing's Jimmy Vasser will tie the legendary Mario Andretti for career Champ Car starts tomorrow, but took care of business today by putting his machine in the ninth spot for Sunday's race. Milwaukee winner Ryan Hunter-Reay will start 10th in tomorrow's event with rookie Roberto Gonzalez following behind after a career-best qualifying effort that left him 11th.