Diesel Audis claim Utah front row

It looked like the diesel Audis might be hard pressed to take pole position after the Penske Porsches dominated the early practice sessions and then Butch Leitzinger put Dyson Racing's improving Lola-AER onto provisional pole early in prototype qualifying.

But then Allan McNish moved half a second clear of the Lola, lapping the spectacular 4.5-mile road course in 2:21.7 seconds.

It appeared that McNish's lap would stand as pole position until his teammate Frank Biela thrust the other Audi to the fore with the final lap of qualifying. The German went 0.2 seconds quicker than McNish despite a lurid moment on his out-lap.

"The problem was I knew I'd only have (time for) one lap so I had to push as hard as I could on the out-lap," said Biela. "Maybe in that corner it was a little bit too much, but it helped so maybe we have to do this all the time."

"Frank obviously did a pretty extreme lap to grab the pole but an Audi 1-2 is a pretty good way to start," McNish added.

The Porsche duo settled for fourth and fifth behind Leitzinger, insisting that they were happy with LMP2 class pole despite Intersport's Lola being their only category rival.

"We are an LMP2 car, right?" said Lucas Luhr. "Our target is to win our class, finish another 1-2, and have good points for the championship."

The GT1 class is also low on entrants, with only the factory Chevrolets and Aston Martins making it to Salt Lake City. The latter marque proved dominant, Tomas Enge leading Stephane Sarrazin to class pole and both lapping over two seconds quicker than Johnny O'Connell in the faster Chevrolet.

"It's a bit of a shame that it's not a real fight between us and the Corvettes," Enge admitted.

Jamie Melo earned GT2 class pole in his Risi Ferrari, 0.7 seconds quicker than Mike Rockenfeller's Alex Job Racing Porsche, although the latter's time was later disallowed due to a technical infringement.

Qualifying times:

Pos  Cl.  Driver             Make                      Time
 1.  P1   Frank Biela        Audi R10 TDI          2:21.553 
 2.  P1   Allan McNish       Audi R10 TDI          2:21.762  +  0.209 
 3.  P1   Butch Leitzinger   Lola B06/10 AER       2:22.535  +  0.982 
 4.  P2   Lucas Luhr         Porsche RS Spyder     2:23.386  +  1.833 
 5.  P2   Timo Bernhard      Porsche RS Spyder     2:23.459  +  1.906 
 6.  P1   Guy Smith          Lola B06/10 AER       2:24.292  +  2.739 
 7.  P1   Andy Wallace       Lola EX257 AER        2:25.867  +  4.314 
 8.  P2   Jon Field          Lola B05/40 AER       2:30.042  +  8.489 
 9.  P1   Michael Lewis      Lola EX257 AER        2:30.949  +  9.396 
10.  GT1  Tomas Enge         Aston Martin DB9      2:34.954  + 13.401 
11.  GT1  Stephane Sarrazin  Aston Martin DB9      2:35.330  + 13.777 
12.  GT1  Johnny O'Connell   Corvette C6-R         2:37.414  + 15.861 
13.  GT1  Oliver Gavin       Corvette C6-R         2:37.627  + 16.074 
14.  GT2  Jamie Melo         Ferrari 430 GT        2:44.024  + 22.471 
15.  GT2  Patrick Long       Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   2:45.160  + 23.607 
16.  GT2  Wolf Henzler       Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   2:45.904  + 24.351 
17.  GT2  Gunnar Jeannette   Panoz Esperante GTLM  2:46.323  + 24.770 
18.  GT2  Darren Law         Porsche 911 GT3 RSR   2:46.855  + 25.302 
19.  GT2  Scott Maxwell      Panoz Esperante GTLM  2:47.596  + 26.043 
20.  GT2  Joey Hand          BMW E46 M3            2:48.758  + 27.205 
21.  GT2  Justin Marks       BMW E46 M3            2:50.415  + 28.862 
22.  GT2  Mike Rockenfeller  Porsche 911 GT3 RSR