Portland pole for Junqueira

The current points leader after three races, Junqueira blistered the field with a best lap of 59.266sec (119.603mph) around the 1.969-mile road course to lead the way on an unseasonably warm day in Portland. The top lap came despite the fact that Junqueira ran just six of his 15 allotted qualifying efforts, with the best lap coming on just his third trip around the 12-turn course.

Junqueira's lap was nearly a half-second better than anyone else's effort on the day, giving the series leader an extra championship point for leading the season and guaranteeing him a front-row starting spot for Sunday's 94-lap event. The front-row starting spot will be the first that the Brazilian has earned at Portland, although he started third en route to a second-place finish in 2002.

"I really thought that the best anyone would do today would be maybe 59.3 seconds if everything was perfect," Junqueira said. "But I hit everything right, the Bridgestone tyres held up perfectly and the PacifiCare car was right where we needed it to be."

Junqueira and his team-mate Sebastien Bourdais made it a 1-2 Newman/Haas sweep as Bourdais returned from a grueling weekend at Le Mans to post a best time of 59.718sec (118.698mph). Following Junqueira's lead, Bourdais ran just five laps in qualifying with his best effort also coming on the third time by the start/finish line.

"We had a lot of problems this morning. I am surprised with our results this afternoon," said Bourdais. "It turned out to be a positive day in the end. The McDonald's car was good, however, Bruno is fast and I know we could not have caught him. We'll put up a fight tomorrow."

Looking for his first Portland win, Paul Tracy put himself in the thick of the hunt with a best lap of 59.791sec (118.553mph) to place third on the day. He showed the strength of his Forsythe Championship Racing squad with his third-place run, climbing into the top three despite the fact that his team had to change the differential, the gearbox and the engine on his car after the first practice.

Tracy was chased by the biggest surprise of the day as rookie A.J. Allmendinger posted the fourth-best time of the day with a best lap of 59.803sec (118.529mph). Allmendinger, who earned his best Champ Car finish two weeks ago with a fifth-place run at Milwaukee, posted his best run on his penultimate lap of the day to slot into fourth of the first-day grid.

Alex Tagliani also used a late-session lap to climb into the top five. The Rocketsports Racing shoe put in 13 laps on the day and carded a top lap of 59.900sec (118.337mph) with just three minutes left in the session to vault into fifth on the first-day speed sheets.

Rookie Roberto Gonzalez had the best qualifying session of his short Champ Car career, ending his day in the sixth position after posting a top lap of 1m00.081s (117.981mph). Gonzalez, as did Allmendinger, went out early in the session while many others decided to wait for optimal track conditions, but the PKV Racing driver showed that waiting did not automatically yield top times as he posted his best result on his fifth pass.

Milwaukee winner Ryan Hunter-Reay was seventh of the day, which is where he qualified a year ago while in his Reynard during his rookie Champ Car season, after carding a lap of 1m00.088s (117.967mph). Hunter-Reay's Herdez team-mate Mario Dominguez followed him on the charts with a lap of 1m00.097s (117.949mph), while Carpentier and Michel Jourdain Jr rounded out the top 10.

The final grid will be set in Saturday's final qualifying session.