Junqueira on provisional pole

The new-look series pitched up in Long Beach as though the difficult winter of take-overs and buy-outs had never happened. Straight away it was about the racing, and throughout the qualifying session, it was last year's title contenders Paul Tracy and Bruno Junqueira that traded times.

In the end, Junqueira, in his Pacificare Newman Haas Lola set a time of 1m08.913s, more than two tenths better than reignin champion Tracy's best of 1m 09.16s.

Alex Tagliani set the third best time, just a fraction ahead of the Herdez competition pair of Mario Dominguez and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Patrick Carpentier was sixth quickest, the Canadian heading out the first of the rookies, the highly impressive AJ Allmendinger. The young American, engineered by former Williams and McLaren F1 engineer David Brown felt there is still room for improvement. "I'm pleased to be in the top eight," he said, " but there's more to carve out."

Formula 1 refugee, and the only British driver in the 2004 Champ Car World Series, Justin Wilson, ended his day in 11th spot, a disappointment after his pace earlier in the day.

Final qualifying takes place on Saturday, but Junqueira is now already locked in to the front row.