Dumas leads Penske front row

Ryan Briscoe had been fastest for most of the prototype session, but his teammate Romain Dumas edged ahead just before Allan McNish spun into the Turn 9 barriers and brought out the red flags. The session did not resume and Dumas' pole was secure, to Briscoe's surprise.

"We came in and thought we'd save the tyres a bit, and then at the end Romain's gone a bit quicker," said the Australian, who was 0.150 seconds slower than Dumas.

"It's good for the Penske team, the car's been running strong and we're on a mission to do some catching up after Sebring.

"We're in position to hopefully get a win here this weekend, but it's a long race and we've got to work hard and keep everything under control."

Dumas was thrilled to snatch the pole.

"It's awesome," he said. "I'm really happy. In the practice before qualifying I didn't do so many laps so I wasn't very confident for the qualifying. The car was just perfect."

McNish had qualified third before his incident, and teammate Marco Werner - who could only manage seventh on the grid - reckoned that the error proved how hard the Audi drivers were having to push to get on terms with the LMP2 cars this weekend.

"We can see Allan is risking a lot," said Werner. "We are on the limit, believe me."

"I was pushing very hard," McNish confirmed. "We know we're up against it here and it required absolute maximum attack.

"It's obvious we can hustle the car to get a lap time that's close to pole position, but I think the race is a different battle."

The three Acura-powered cars filled positions four to six, with Adrian Fernandez ahead of Bryan Herta and David Brabham, and the team symmetry was completed by Dyson Porsche's Guy Smith and Butch Leitzinger in eighth and ninth.

With the Modena Aston Martin team concentrating on their European programme after Sebring, the two factory Corvettes were the sole GT1 entries. Olivier Beretta beat Johnny O'Connell by 0.681 seconds to win the inter-team battle.

The Ferrari teams retained the upper hand in GT2, with Tomas Enge putting the Petersen/White Lightning 430 on class pole by 0.2 seconds from Risi's Jaime Melo.

The two Tafel Porsches and the Flying Lizard Porsches completed the class top six.

Qualifying times:

Pos  Cl   Driver              Make                 Time
 1.  P2   Romain Dumas        Porsche RS Spyder    1:03.039 
 2.  P2   Ryan Briscoe        Porsche RS Spyder    1:03.189 
 3.  P1   Allan McNish        Audi R10 TDI         1:03.415 
 4.  P2   Adrian Fernandez    Acura Lola BO6       1:03.432 
 5.  P2   Bryan Herta         Acura ARX-01a        1:03.746 
 6.  P2   David Brabham       Acura ARX-01a        1:03.807 
 7.  P1   Marco Werner        Audi R10 TDI         1:04.139 
 8.  P2   Guy Smith           Porsche RS Spyder    1:04.376 
 9.  P2   Butch Leitzinger    Porsche RS Spyder    1:04.845 
10.  P1   Chris McMurry       Lola EX257 AER       1:08.536 
11.  P1   Clint Field         Creation CA06H Judd  1:08.844 
12.  P2   Jamie Bach          Mazda Lola B07-40    1:08.991 
13.  GT1  Olivier Beretta     Corvette C6-R        1:09.531 
14.  GT1  Johnny O`Connell    Corvette C6-R        1:10.212 
15.  GT2  Tomas Enge          Ferrari 430GT        1:12.025 
16.  GT2  Jaime Melo          Ferrari 430GT        1:12.246 
17.  GT2  Robin Liddell       Porsche 911 GT3 RSR  1:12.738 
18.  GT2  Dominik Farnbacher  Porsche 911 GT3 RSR  1:12.937 
19.  GT2  Joerg Bergmeister   Porsche 911 GT3 RSR  1:13.217 
20.  GT2  Lonnie Pechnik      Porsche 911 GT3 RSR  1:13.438 
21.  GT2  Joey Hand           Panoz Esperante      1:13.440 
22.  GT2  Terry Borcheller    Porsche 911 GT3 RSR  1:14.400 
23.  GT2  Ross Smith          Panoz Esperante      1:17.622