De Ferran on Long Beach pole

De Ferran brushed the wall on his pole lap, throwing up a shower of cement dust, but the collision with the wall was minor and didn't damage his car at all.

"That was a pretty exciting session," de Ferran said. "As soon as you thought you had done a pretty good time, somebody would go faster. I brushed the wall slightly on my fast lap, but it didn't upset the car. The car has been handling well throughout the weekend and I believed all along we had a shot at the pole. Yesterday I couldn't quite get a good lap in."

De Ferran has never won at Long Beach although he led 51 laps in 1998 before breaking a gearbox and led 100 of 105 laps in 1996 before slowing because of a disconnected turbo hose.

"Hopefully," he joked about the race, "I'm going to disappear in the the lead and it will be the most boring race you've ever seen at Long Beach."

He said he tries not to think about the possibility of scoring Team Penske's elusive 100th win. "I really try not to focus on that," de Ferran said. "My belief is that if we do the job right the numbers will come, then 101, and 102. They're landmarks to be passed. The important thing is to be continually successful."

Qualifying an impressive second and third were Ganassi teammates Jimmy Vasser and Juan Pablo Montoya. Vasser and Montoya languished in seventh or eight places for most of the session but in the closing minutes both of them leaped into the frame, challenging seriously for the pole. In the end Vasser outqualified his teammate by just under three-tenths of a second.

"We've been running old tyres most of the day, getting ready for the race," Vasser said. "I feel like we have a good handle on the chassis, and the engine has been performing well. If everything goes smoothly tomorrow I think we have a shot at the win."

Last year's winner Montoya said it's taken both days of practice and qualifying for the Ganassi team to find a competitive set-up for its Lola-Toyotas. "We've been really struggling with the set-up," Montoya said. "We've been getting better and better and we're just starting to understand where we want to go. I'm surprised. I thought we would just make the top ten."

Montoya said he clipped the wall more than once in today's final qualifying. "I think I hit the wall three or four times," he grinned. "One time after I hit the wall the car was a bit loose. Maybe it helped."

Yesterday's provisional pole sitter Adrian Fernandez fell to fourth today. Fernandez is still feeling a little unwell with a cold and said that his condition and some unsuccessful set-up experiments kept him from challenging today. "I don't want to make any excuses, but I didn't sleep very well last night and we missed a little on the set-up today," Fernandez said.

An impressive fifth quickest today was Bryan Herta who is making his first appearance of the year as Shinji Nakano's stand-in aboard Derrick Walker's Reynard-Honda. Herta tested briefly earlier in the week before starting to practice on Friday and has looked good all weekend. He qualified on the pole for this race in 1998 and led the closing stages when Alex Zanardi passed him with just two laps to go.

Homestead winner Max Papis qualified sixth today followed by teammate Kenny Brack. The top ten were completed by Roberto Moreno, Helio Castro-Neves and Mem Gidley, the latter also playing a stand-in role this weekend. Gidley is making his first start of the year at Forsythe in place of Patrick Carpentier who broke his wrist in a domestic accident early last week.

Disappointing qualifying runs came from Newman-Haas teammates Christian Fittipaldi and Michael Andretti who qualified 13th and 14th, more than a second off de Ferran's pole. Also struggling for speed were Team Green pair Paul Tracy and Dario Franchitti who will start 17th and 19th. Franchitti over-revved an engine this morning and then hit the wall in qualifying.

"I made a mistake," Franchitti admitted. "I was trying a but too hard on my first lap and I was suprised the car gripped as hard as it did. I caught the wall with my right front. I've got to put this behind me right away. I'll be pissed off for a while, but you've to get on with it."