Bourdais pips Wilson to pole

Sebastien Bourdais pipped Justin Wilson for pole position in Toronto today, setting the fastest time in second qualifying.

The Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing driver set a time 0.011 seconds quicker than his RSPORTS rival, and the Briton then brushed a wall in Turn 6, ruining his final attempt to gain pre-eminence.

Bourdais' third Toronto pole came with a 58.288-second lap of the 1.755-mile course, at an average speed of 108.393 mph.

Oriol Servia clocked third fastest for Forsythe Championship Racing with his final lap, but his teammate Paul Tracy was down in 10th, struggling to find a decent pace on the softer compound red-walled tyres.

Simon Pagenaud and Will Power have endured a difficult weekend, and fourth and seventh was about as good as they could expect in qualifying set-up.

Alex Tagliani was half a second off RSPORTS teammate Wilson's pace, but that was good enough to nail sixth. What was more surprising still is that the man who beat him out of fifth was Bruno Junqueira.

The Dale Coyne Racing driver needed a spark box and coil change in the 15-minute pre-qualifying session, but that done, he drove superbly to fulfil the promise he had shown in free practice sessions.

His teammate Katherine Legge, by contrast, sat out qualifying after crashing at Turn 1 on her sixth lap.

Jan Heylen put the Conquest Racing car in eighth on the grid, while Minardi Team USA pilots Robert Doornbos and Dan Clarke finished 12th and 13th respectively.

Pos  Driver               Team                        Time
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais   Newman/Haas/Lanigan         58.288
 2.  Justin Wilson        RSPORTS                     58.299 + 0.011
 3.  Oriol Servia         Forsythe Championship       58.661 + 0.373
 4.  Simon Pagenaud       Team Australia              58.664 + 0.376
 5.  Bruno Junqueira      Dale Coyne                  58.675 + 0.387
 6.  Alex Tagliani        RSPORTS                     58.779 + 0.491
 7.  Will Power           Team Australia              58.790 + 0.502
 8.  Jan Heylen           Conquest                    58.816 + 0.528
 9.  Neel Jani            PKV                         58.834 + 0.546
10.  Paul Tracy           Forsythe Championship       58.882 + 0.594
11.  Ryan Dalziel         Pacific Coast Motorsports   58.912 + 0.624
12.  Robert Doornbos      Minardi Team USA            59.024 + 0.736
13.  Dan Clarke           Minardi Team USA            59.263 + 0.975
14.  Tristan Gommendy     PKV                         59.265 + 0.977
15.  Graham Rahal         Newman/Haas/Lanigan         59.384 + 1.096
16.  Katherine Legge      Dale Coyne                  59.520 + 1.232
17.  Alex Figge           Pacific Coast Motorsports   59.973 + 1.685