Brack nabs Mexican pole

The Team Rahal set the standard with a 75.244 seconds (100.665 mph) lap in his Shell Ford/Reynard with about 5 minutes remaining in the 30-minute qualifying session to edge Cristiano da Matta in the Newman-Haas Lola-Toyota by 0.195 seconds.

"We actually put the last set of tyres on pretty early in the session," reported Brack. "We did that because we saw that the guys in the first group were trying really hard in the last few minutes, and they were kicking a lot of dirt onto the circuit. So we were careful and did our time with four or five minutes to go.

"As it turned out, I ran out of fuel," he added. "So I wouldn't have been able to complete another run anyway."

It was Brack's first Champ Car pole and the Swede's first number one grid slot since he took the top spot for the Hockenheim Formula 3000 round in 1996. The road course pole was a statement for Lola, which was generally considered to be slightly inferior to the Reynard chassis in road course trim.

Da Matta matched his career best qualifying effort in his first race for Newman-Haas. His team mate Christian Fittipaldi was an unhappy 16th.

"It's a lot easier when you unload a car that is working well," commented da Matta. "That's the kind of race weekend we've had so far. From Friday afternoon to now, we didn't have to make any major changes to the car. That helps because you can concentrate on the small details."

Defending CART champion Gil de Ferran took third in the Marlboro Honda/Reynard despite suffering from a severely upset stomach, while fourth place was claimed by his younger Penske team mate Helio Castroneves.

"I was on a fast lap at the end, but I caught some traffic," noted Castroneves. "But that's the way things go on tracks like this. I'm still very happy to be starting on the second row and I feel good about my car in race trim."

Michael Andretti was well down the order before putting in a flyer near the end to qualify fifth. Dario Franchitti was seventh in the Kool-sponsored Team Green entry, eight spots ahead of his stablemate Paul Tracy.

Click here for the qualifying results.