Bourdais on provisional Mexico pole

The Newman/Haas Racing pilot lapped the Circuito Hermanos Rodriguez in 1:25.449, with an average speed of 116.870mph, to pip last year's Mexico City pole sitter and race winner Justin Wilson by just over a tenth of a second.

The British RuSPORT driver had to cut short one qualifying run when he tweaked his injured wrist while clipping a chicane, and he came back to the pits to ice it up. When he returned to the circuit, Wilson improved his time, despite encountering traffic.

"I think I'm losing a tenth through the Peraltada," Wilson said, "because I haven't got the strength to get it on to the ideal line, and I'm losing more than that through the Esses, so I think we could have been on pole."

Will Power continued his excellent form to go third quickest, on the second circuit on the Champ Car trail which he has experienced before.

"Yeah, that makes a real difference," said the Team Australia driver, "because you don't waste time and tyres learning the circuit. You can actually go out there and concentrate on car set-up.

"I think we can fight for pole tomorrow, because the red tyres changed the balance of the car, so we've got something to work on there."

Compatriot Ryan Briscoe was fifth fastest in the second RuSPORT car, the Aussie duo split by Bruno Junqueira's Newman/Haas machine.

Star of the session was unquestionably local man David Martinez, who put his Forsythe Championship Racing car eighth quickest.

He said: "I don't know how much more there is to come, because I felt that I was pushing flat-out. But over the weekend you can learn more about the car, and improve automatically, and you can wake up the next morning a different driver."

His teammate and fellow Champ Car rookie Buddy Rice had a bit more of a struggle. Like Martinez, he reckoned the lack of track time from this morning - when the gearing needed changing in both cars - lost him some time.

"We're playing catch-up," said the man who has taken the drive vacated by AJ Allmendinger, "and I also think we got our timing on reds wrong.

"We needed an extra lap on that last run to show our potential but the checker came out. But we should be fine for tomorrow."

Pos  Driver              Team                   Time
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas            1:25.449
 2.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT                1:25.560 + 0.111
 3.  Will Power          Team Australia         1:25.624 + 0.175
 4.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman/Haas            1:26.118 + 0.669
 5.  Ryan Briscoe        RuSPORT                1:26.494 + 1.045
 6.  Oriol Servia        PKV                    1:26.527 + 1.078
 7.  Nelson Philippe     CTE HVM                1:26.708 + 1.259
 8.  David Martinez      Forsythe Championship  1:26.819 + 1.370
 9.  Andrew Ranger       Mi-Jack Conquest       1:27.089 + 1.640
10.  Mario Dominguez     Rocketsports           1:27.151 + 1.702
11.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne             1:27.214 + 1.765
12.  Charles Zwolsman    Mi-Jack Conquest       1:27.268 + 1.819
13.  Buddy Rice          Forsythe Championship  1:27.336 + 1.887
14.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia         1:27.436 + 1.987
15.  Dan Clarke          CTE HVM                1:27.516 + 2.067
16.  Antonio Pizzonia    Rocketsports           1:27.566 + 2.117
17.  Katherine Legge     PKV                    1:27.720 + 2.271
18.  Andreas Wirth       Dale Coyne             1:29.148 + 3.699