Doornbos fastest in the warm-up

The Minardi Team USA driver clocked a 58.675 seconds lap to beat championship rival Sebastien Bourdais by 0.13 seconds, setting an average speed of 121.053mph.

The Dutchman, who had an alternator problem yesterday which meant he could only do two laps at a time, will have to work hard from 11th on the grid to defend his slender championship lead, considering his two championship rivals Will Power and Bourdais are on the front row.

Alex Tagliani, another driver who has thus far had a scrappy weekend and will start his RSPORTS car from ninth on the grid, showed excellent pace to set third fastest time and, like Doornbos, comfortably eclipsed his qualifying pace, ahead of Simon Pagenaud of Team Australia and the second RSPORTS car of Justin Wilson.

Katherine Legge took seventh on red (soft compound) tyres, but then hit the wall at Turn 8, wiping the nose wings off her Dale Coyne Racing car.

Despite his apparently poor showing in 12th place, Paul Tracy is happier with the handling of his car, following the Forsythe Championship Racing crew's strip-down and rebuilding of his car yesterday.

Mario Dominguez, substituting for the injured Tristan Gommendy at PKV Racing, completed 16 laps but wound up last, 1.4 seconds off teammate Neel Jani.

Pos  Driver           Team                              Time
 1.  Robert Doornbos  Minardi Team USA                58.675
 2.  S.Bourdais       Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing      58.808 + 0.133
 3.  Alex Tagliani    RSPORTS                         58.884 + 0.209
 4.  Simon Pagenaud   Team Australia                  59.185 + 0.510
 5.  Justin Wilson    RSPORTS                         59.205 + 0.530
 6.  Graham Rahal     Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing      59.209 + 0.534
 7.  Katherine Legge  Dale Coyne Racing               59.431 + 0.756
 8.  Neel Jani        PKV Racing                      59.905 + 1.230
 9.  Will Power       Team Australia                  59.943 + 1.268
10.  Bruno Junqueira  Dale Coyne Racing             1:00.079 + 1.404
11.  Jan Heylen       Conquest Racing               1:00.312 + 1.637
12.  Paul Tracy       Forsythe Championship Racing  1:00.331 + 1.656
13.  Alex Figge       Pacific Coast Motorsports     1:00.450 + 1.775
14.  Dan Clarke       Minardi Team USA              1:00.484 + 1.809
15.  Oriol Servia     Forsythe Championship Racing  1:00.997 + 2.322
16.  Ryan Dalziel     Pacific Coast Motorsports     1:01.192 + 2.517
17.  Mario Dominguez  PKV Racing                    1:01.305 + 2.630