Penske dominate Detroit qualifying

Ryan Briscoe and Timo Bernhard jumped to first and second in the latter part of the session, after Dyson Porsche's Guy Smith and Andretti-Green Acura driver Bryan Herta had both taken turns on provisional pole.

It looked like Bernhard was destined for the top spot after Briscoe missed his braking point at Turn 8 on his flying lap, but the Australian recovered to set a 1:13.357 next time around, beating his teammate by 0.246 seconds.

Herta and Smith ended up third and fourth, with David Brabham (Highcroft) and Adrian Fernandez (Fernandez Racing) completing the overall top six in the remaining Acura entries.

The LMP1 Audis were no match for the LMP2 cars on the tight street track - lapping nearly two seconds slower than Briscoe's pole time.

Despite not being in contention for outright honours, Allan McNish and Marco Werner still staged a spectacular battle for class pole and seventh overall. They swapped positions several times before McNish edged ahead by just 0.050 seconds with his final lap.

Jan Magnussen beat teammate Olivier Beretta to pole by 0.332 seconds in the all-Corvette GT1 class, with the Dane only fractions of a second behind the LMP2 B-K Lola-Mazda, which had been hurriedly repaired after a practice crash.

Both Corvettes will start ahead of the slowest prototype, as Intersport continued to struggle with the Creation chassis - Clint Field lapping nine seconds off the pace in 14th overall.

GT2 qualifying saw another Risi Ferrari one-two. Mika Salo stayed out long after the rest of the field had pitted as he tried in vain to depose teammate Gianmaria Bruni from class pole, but the Finn failed by 0.015 seconds and had to settle for second.

"I couldn't ask for better - it's my first time at a street circuit in a car with a roof on top," said Bruni. "I tried to learn from my teammates Mika and Jaime (Melo) and just do the best lap I could."

Dirk Muller's Petersen/White Lightning F430 completed a top three clean sweep for Ferrari, with Flying Lizard's Pat Long the best Porsche runner in fourth, 0.8 seconds off the class pace, and 0.058 seconds ahead of Tafel Racing's Dominik Farnbacher.

Pos  Driver                 Car                  Time
 1.  Ryan Briscoe           Porsche RS Spyder    1:13.357 
 2.  Timo Bernhard          Porsche RS Spyder    1:13.603  + 0.246
 3.  Bryan Herta            Acura ARX-01a        1:13.768  + 0.411
 4.  Guy Smith              Porsche RS Spyder    1:13.983  + 0.626
 5.  David Brabham          Acura ARX-01a        1:14.010  + 0.653
 6.  Adrian Fernandez       Acura Lola BO6       1:14.450  + 1.093
 7.  Allan McNish           Audi R10 TDI         1:15.320  + 1.963
 8.  Marco Werner           Audi R10 TDI         1:15.370  + 2.013
 9.  Andy Wallace           Porsche RS Spyder    1:15.639  + 2.282
10.  Klaus Graf             AER Lola B06-10      1:18.016  + 4.659
11.  Jamie Bach             Mazda Lola B07-40    1:20.669  + 7.312
12.  Jan Magnussen          Corvette C6.R        1:21.057  + 7.700
13.  Olivier Beretta        Corvette C6.R        1:21.389  + 8.032
14.  Clint Field            Creation CA06H Judd  1:22.713  + 9.356
15.  Gianmaria Bruni        Ferrari 430 GT       1:24.586  + 11.229
16.  Mika Salo              Ferrari 430 GT       1:24.601  + 11.244
17.  Dirk Mueller           Ferrari 430 GT       1:25.030  + 11.673
18.  Patrick Long           Porsche 911 GT3 RSR  1:25.370  + 12.013
19.  Dominik Farnbacher     Porsche 911 GT3 RSR  1:25.428  + 12.071
20.  Johannes van Overbeek  Porsche 911 GT3 RSR  1:26.060  + 12.703
21.  Ralf Kelleners         Porsche 911 GT3 RSR  1:26.528  + 13.171
22.  Joey Hand              Panoz Esperante      1:28.999  + 15.642