Bourdais Rules Monterrey Qualifying

The Frenchman showed he will be a formidable opponent for any pretenders to his crown, topping the morning practice session by more than 0.8s before locking out provisional pole position in the afternoon.

As he often does, Bourdais kept his powder dry in the early part of the session and let his rivals carry out track-sweeping duties, before immediately laying down a marker and then moving the target steadily further out of reach.

Eventually teammate Bruno Junqueira pegged his margin back to three tenths of a second and secured second on the overnight grid, testifying to the continued prowess of Newman/Haas Racing. But it is Bourdais who pockets the bonus Championship point and- crucially a guaranteed place on the front row for Sunday's race.

Justin Wilson sprang a surprise in the dying moments of the session, vaulting from the outer fringes of the top 10 to third place in the leading RuSPORT entry. The Briton was the best part of a second adrift of the Newman/Haas pair but comfortably clear of fourth-placed Alex Tagliani, who did an excellent job in the Team Australia (formerly Walker Racing) Lola.

Mexican Mario Dominguez, who thrilled his home crowd with a podium finish in Monterrey last year, had to make do with fifth in Friday qualifying. But that at least put him in the thick of things, whereas Forsythe teammate
Paul Tracy languished at the very back of the pack after completing only a handful of laps early on in the session.

French-Canadian teenager Andrew Ranger was top of the rookie class with an impressive sixth fastest time for Mi-Jack Conquest Racing, just ahead of 2004 Rookie of the Year AJ Allmendinger, who trailed teammate Wilson by half a second.

Timo Glock, nursing some bruising following a heavy testing accident at Milwaukee earlier this month, was the leading Rocketsports Racing representative in eighth. PKV duo and former series Champions Jimmy Vasser and Cristiano da Matta rounded out the top ten.

Pos  Driver              Team                   Time              Laps
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman Haas            1:14.967           10
 2.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman Haas            1:15.248 + 0.281   10
 3.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT                1:15.836 + 0.869    8
 4.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia         1:16.217 + 1.250   10
 5.  Mario Dominguez     Forsythe Championship  1:16.306 + 1.339   13
 6.  Andrew Ranger       Mi-Jack Conquest       1:16.332 + 1.365   10
 7.  A.J. Allmendinger   RuSPORT                1:16.345 + 1.378    7
 8.  Timo Glock          Rocketsports           1:16.454 + 1.487    7
 9.  Jimmy Vasser        PKV                    1:16.519 + 1.552   12
10.  Cristiano da Matta  PKV                    1:16.537 + 1.570   11
11.  Ronnie Bremer       HVM, Inc.              1:16.853 + 1.886   13
12.  Oriol Servia        Dale Coyne             1:17.481 + 2.514   11
13.  Bjorn Wirdheim      HVM, Inc.              1:17.671 + 2.704   12
14.  Ricardo Sperafico   Dale Coyne             1:17.794 + 2.827   15
15.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    Rocketsports           1:17.864 + 2.897    5
16.  Nelson Philippe     Mi-Jack Conquest       1:18.067 + 3.100    8
17.  Marcus Marshall     Team Australia         1:18.421 + 3.454   11
18.  Jorge Goeters       PKV Team Mexico        1:19.225 + 4.258   11
19.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe Championship  1:22.302 + 7.335    6