Dominguez takes stunning pole

The Mexican's lap time was over 0.4 seconds clear of teammate Paul Tracy, and set an average speed of 104.950mph.

"I want to dedicate this to the team," Dominguez said afterwards. "They have done such a good job over winter and over this weekend.

"Everyone's working really well together, and we all feel comfortable with each other. Paul [Tracy] has really helped me too."

Dominguez completed his 15 laps early, and then sat and watched his rivals shoot at his lap time.

"It was very nerve-wracking waiting there," he said, "but there had been so many red flags in yesterday's qualifying that my engineer Michael Cannon and I just felt I should get the lap time in while I could.

"I didn't even attack the track corner by corner, but inch by inch to make sure it was as perfect as I could get. And it worked out."

Bruno Junqueira will line up second on account of his being quickest in first qualifying yesterday.

The Newman/Haas driver said: "I had set a good lap time, to go quickest at the time, but I brushed the wall in Turn 5 trying to improve.

"Then, when I saw Mario's time I thought there's no way I'm going to get a 58.0, so I was happy to settle for guaranteed front row."

Paul Tracy, second quickest today, paid tribute to Forsythe. "The whole team worked so hard to turn things around after it looked like it was going to be a walkaway for Newman/Haas, and it's paid off,"  de said.

"I think on my first set of reds [the stickier set of Bridgestone tyres] I was a little too tentative, and didn't get the most I could.

"Then I went out and attacked the course but I couldn't match Mario. Historically, he's always been very fast at real bumpy courses like here, Denver, Miami. And he's on pole so he's got no-one to hit at Turn 1 tomorrow!"

AJ Allmendinger will line up fourth on the grid for RuSPORT, while teammate Justin Wilson, who had a spin early in the session will be seventh.

In between the RuSPORT duo, on the third row, will be Newman/Haas Racing's Sebastien Bourdais who, having lost his times from yesterday after failing a post-qualifying technical inspection, had to be quickest today to get on the front row.

However, the Frenchman was not comfortable with the response of the car on red tyres on his opening run and thus committed to black tyres. He will line up fifth, beside Team Australia's Alex Tagliani.

PKV Racing had a disappointing session when Oriol Servia was docked his fastest time for completing a lap more than his allotted 15. He will line up eighth, while Team-mate Katherine Legge took 15th.

Conquest Racing appear to have made progress, with Charles Zwolsman and Andrew Ranger impressing with 11th and 13th fastest, but Dale Coyne Racing were only 14th and 17th.

Dan Clarke brought out another red flag after understeering into a tyre wall, but the Briton produced a fine lap to get within 0.3 seconds of CTE Racing-HVM teammate Nelson Philippe, who did an excellent job to grab ninth.

Combined qualifying results:

Pos  Driver              Team                Time            Laps
 1.  Mario Dominguez     Forsythe            58.026           25
 2.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman Haas         58.918 + 0.892   21
 3.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe            58.426 + 0.400   22
 4.  A.J. Allmendinger   RuSPORT             58.572 + 0.546   25
 5.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman Haas         58.627 + 0.601   25
 6.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia      58.765 + 0.739   27
 7.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT             58.829 + 0.803   22
 8.  Oriol Servia        PKV                 59.062 + 1.036   26
 9.  Nelson Philippe     CTE HVM             59.232 + 1.206   26
10.  Will Power          Team Australia      59.302 + 1.276   23
11.  Charles Zwolsman    Mi-Jack Conquest    59.385 + 1.359   29
12.  Dan Clarke          CTE HVM             59.550 + 1.524   16
13.  Andrew Ranger       Mi-Jack Conquest    59.740 + 1.714   30
14.  Cristiano da Matta  Dale Coyne        1:00.195 + 2.169   26
15.  Katherine Legge     PKV               1:00.265 + 2.239   29
16.  Nicky Pastorelli    Rocketsports      1:00.269 + 2.243   24
17.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne        1:00.839 + 2.813    6