Bourdais takes provisional pole
Sebastien Bourdais produced a stunning 59.110 second lap in first qualifying at Houston this evening to put himself on the front row
The Frenchman only needed nine laps in a session interrupted by red flags to put himself over half a second clear of Newman/Haas Racing teammate Bruno Junqueira. Paul Tracy of Forsythe Championship Racing was third, 0.9 of a second off Bourdais' time.
Tracy had to have his left sidepod changed after a minor altercation with CTE Racing-HVM's Dan Clarke ripped off a rear winglet on the Forsythe car.
The contact had far bigger consequences for Clarke, however, who slid into the wall on the long, high-speed Turn 4.
Rocketsports Racing's Nicky Pastorelli had a slightly wild evening and caused two reds with spins, and Will Power (Team Australia) also lost his quickest time after nosing into a tyre wall.
Power's teammate Alex Tagliani, by contrast, ended up a strong fourth, just two hundredths off compatriot Tracy.
Behind these two Canadians, the RuSPORT duo of AJ Allmendinger and Justin Wilson clocked fifth and seventh fastest times, split by the second Forsythe car of Mario Dominguez.
Katherine Legge was 12th, 1.6 seconds off teammate Oriol Servia, while Nelson Philippe made up for his lack of track time in first practice by clocking a strong 10th.
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Sebastien Bourdais Newman Haas 0:59.110 10 2. Bruno Junqueira Newman Haas 0:59.617 + 0.507 10 3. Paul Tracy Indeck Forsythe 1:00.032 + 0.922 11 4. Alex Tagliani Team Australia 1:00.047 + 0.937 12 5. A.J. Allmendinger RuSPORT 1:00.047 + 0.937 12 6. Mario Dominguez Forsythe 1:00.134 + 1.024 10 7. Justin Wilson RuSPORT 1:00.149 + 1.039 10 8. Oriol Servia PKV 1:00.268 + 1.158 10 9. Will Power Team Australia 1:00.690 + 1.580 9 10. Nelson Philippe CTE HVM 1:01.260 + 2.150 12 11. Cristiano da Matta Dale Coyne 1:01.612 + 2.502 11 12. Katherine Legge PKV 1:01.831 + 2.721 14 13. Charles Zwolsman Mi-Jack Conquest 1:01.903 + 2.793 14 14. Andrew Ranger Mi-Jack Conquest 1:03.165 + 4.055 15 15. Nicky Pastorelli Rocketsports 1:04.091 + 4.981 9 16. Dan Clarke CTE HVM no time 2 17. Jan Heylen Dale Coyne no time 0
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