Bourdais secures Long Beach pole

The Newman/Haas driver set a time of 1:06.886 - 0.322 seconds ahead of Justin Wilson, taking the 19th pole position of his 46-race Champ Car career.

"There's not much to complain about," Bourdais said. "When we pitted after our first qualifying run, we were half a second up on the field, and you sit there and think, do you keep an extra set of tyres for race-day, or do you go and try to improve?

"If you make the right decision, you're a genius; and if you don't, you're a dumb-ass. But the team worked hard, and we have our first pole position here."

Wilson's front-row start was a significant turnaround for the RuSPORT team this weekend, as he had not been 100 per cent happy with his car's set-up until this qualifying session.

Up until then, the Briton had been marginally trailing RuSPORT teammate AJ Allmendinger, but sneaked second by 0.017 seconds ahead of Newman/Haas pilot Bruno Junqueira who in turn was a mere 0.024 seconds quicker than Allmendinger.

Junqueira commented: "This morning the red alternate tyres gave a lot of extra grip, but it changed the balance of my car and so it wasn't perfect for qualifying.

"However, I don't think I had anything for Sebastien today anyway, and that I would have been a couple of tenths off him anyway."

Bourdais's fierce rival Paul Tracy hit the wall and damaged his suspension and will line-up sixth.

Tracy, who broke a wheel against the wall yesterday too, crashed today with just under four minutes to go, and will start alongside his Forsythe Championship Racing teammate Mario Dominguez.

That was not the only accident of the session, as it finished under red/chequered flags when Conquest Racing's Charles Zwolsman and Will Power of Team Australia collided at the final corner.

For causing the session to be halted, both drivers were docked their fastest laps. Power will line up ninth and Zwolsman 18th.

Brazilian ex-F1 drivers Cristiano da Matta of Dale Coyne Racing and Antonio Pizzonia of Rocketsports will start 10th and 11th respectively, while Britons Dan Clarke (CTE Racing-HVM) and Katherine Legge (PKV Racing) took 13th and 17th respectively.

Pos  Driver              Team              Time              Laps
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman Haas       1:06.886            6
 2.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT           1:07.208 + 0.322   12
 3.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman Haas       1:07.225 + 0.339   10
 4.  A.J. Allmendinger   RuSPORT           1:07.249 + 0.363   10
 5.  Mario Dominguez     Forsythe          1:07.301 + 0.415   10
 6.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe          1:07.408 + 0.522    4
 7.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia    1:07.717 + 0.831    5
 8.  Oriol Servia        PKV               1:07.869 + 0.983   12
 9.  Will Power          Team Australia    1:07.965 + 1.079    5
10.  Cristiano da Matta  Dale Coyne        1:07.982 + 1.096    6
11.  Antonio Pizzonia    Rocketsports      1:08.242 + 1.356   13
12.  Jimmy Vasser        PKV               1:08.246 + 1.360    4
13.  Dan Clarke          CTE HVM           1:08.410 + 1.524   12
14.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne        1:08.641 + 1.755   13
15.  Nelson Philippe     CTE HVM           1:08.647 + 1.761    5
16.  Andrew Ranger       Mi-Jack Conquest  1:08.855 + 1.969    6
17.  Katherine Legge     PKV               1:09.254 + 2.368   14
18.  Charles Zwolsman    Mi-Jack Conquest  1:09.554 + 2.668   12

Note: since all drivers set their fastest qualifying lap in session 2, the above results are also the combined results and the starting grid for tomorrow's race