Bourdais tops San Jose warm-up

The Newman/Haas Racing driver, who will start from pole position for this afternoon's Grand Prix, was over a second faster than the man who will start alongside him, Paul Tracy.

However, the Forsythe Championship Racing ace did not have a representative time after brushing the wall halfway through the session, and knocking a toelink out on his left-rear suspension.

CTE Racing-HVM were the talk of the session, as there seemed more evidence that the team had underperformed in qualifying.

Dan Clarke and Nelson Philippe wound up second and third fastest, but will be starting ninth and 11th respectively.

Clarke had his quickest laps held up by traffic yesterday, while Philippe's gearbox broke after using just one set of his qualifying tyres.

Bruno Junqueira (Newman/Haas) and Cristiano da Matta (RuSPORT) both indicated they are set for their strongest races of the season with fourth and fifth quickest times.

Tony Cotman of Race Control has ruled that use of the Cosworth power-to-pass system will not be permitted on the run down to the first hairpin at the start of the race.

There had been some concern that on this narrow track all hell could break loose at turn one. With Bourdais, Tracy and Allmendinger as our top three, it still might.

Pos  Driver              Team                   Time            Laps
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman Haas            49.893           26
 2.  Dan Clarke          CTE HVM                50.240 + 0.347   28
 3.  Nelson Philippe     CTE HVM                50.373 + 0.480   25
 4.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman Haas            50.495 + 0.602   26
 5.  Cristiano da Matta  RuSPORT                50.687 + 0.794   27
 6.  Oriol Servia        PKV                    50.701 + 0.808   26
 7.  A.J. Allmendinger   Forsythe Championship  50.757 + 0.864   25
 8.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe Championship  50.976 + 1.083   14
 9.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT                51.100 + 1.207   23
10.  Will Power          Team Australia         51.180 + 1.287   21
11.  Mario Dominguez     Dale Coyne             51.236 + 1.343   25
12.  Charles Zwolsman    Mi-Jack Conquest       51.263 + 1.370   26
13.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia         51.362 + 1.469   22
14.  Katherine Legge     PKV                    51.460 + 1.567   24
15.  Andrew Ranger       Mi-Jack Conquest       51.523 + 1.630   24
16.  Nicky Pastorelli    Rocketsports           51.532 + 1.639   27
17.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne             53.089 + 3.196   14