Qual 2: Bourdais again

With three more events left on the schedule, the Frenchman may yet eclipse the modern-day record of nine poles in a single season, set by Danny Sullivan during his championship-winning year of 1988.

Bourdais' performance today did his own title chances a power of good, especially since his main rival, Newman/Haas team-mate Bruno Junqueira, qualified a lowly eighth at a track where passing is notoriously difficult.

Junqueira put a brake on Bourdais' steamroller-like progress towards the Vanderbilt Cup by winning last time out in Montreal, but it looks
increasingly like he will need a minor miracle - or at least a string of misadventures for Bourdais - to overhaul him in the points standings.

"The McDonald's car has been very fast all year long, so there's no reason that it should stop," said the pole winner. "Today's session wasn't easy though. On my second run I was following Michel Jourdain and I think he was struggling with his car at some points because he was going slow, fast, slow, fast. I had to keep backing off and it was hard to keep my mind focused on putting a lap together.

"So I had only one quick lap and I pushed a bit too much, locked a wheel and went into the sand [at Turn 2]. At that point I thought it was all over because I had a pretty decent flat-spot on the left-front tyre; usually when it's like that it's over, but I moved the brake bias to the rear and prayed it was going to hold, and it paid off."

Last year's winner Patrick Carpentier will line up second on the grid on the strength of his Friday pole, but looked a little ragged today in his efforts to stay at the head of the field. He did improve on his provisional time in Saturday's grippier track conditions, but fell 0.25s short of the ultimate pace.

The French-Canadian said, "I'm a bit disappointed because we used that red stripe [on the sidewall of the tyres, signifying the softer 'alternate' compound] quite a bit and I don't think we can use that set again for the race. I tried to put a fast lap together but I went off in the Corkscrew and I also went off at Turn 10 at the end there. I made a couple of mistakes but at least I locked in the front-row spot yesterday!"

Forsythe Racing stablemate Paul Tracy also had an eventful day, crashing at Turn 6 in the morning practice session and badly damaging the tub of his primary car. That meant he had to switch to the spare chassis for qualifying, automatically forfeiting his Friday time. But the defending series champion kept it on the island this afternoon, and third on the grid - a scant 0.157s behind Bourdais - represented a successful damage limitation exercise.

"I left a little bit of time on the table," admitted Tracy. "I made a
mistake in the last corner and we lost a little bit, although I don't know if it was enough for pole. But we're happy with third considering we started the session without a time on the board."

AJ Allmendinger was a threat for pole throughout the session and wound up a highly creditable fourth as he continues to make a major impact during his rookie season. The youngster hails from nearby Hollister, California and is hoping for a big result in front of his home crowd.

"I'm actually a little bit disappointed being fourth, but I guess that means we're doing something right because I was disappointed with fifth on the grid in Montreal and four races ago I would have taken this any day," grinned Allmendinger.

Michel Jourdain completed a stellar day for the fledgling RuSPORT outfit by qualifying fifth after borrowing team-mate Allmendinger's set-up. Amazingly, the still-youthful Jourdain will surpass Bobby Rahal and Michael Andretti for the fifth-longest streak of consecutive Champ Car starts (146) when he takes the green flag tomorrow afternoon.

Rocketsports Racing's Alex Tagliani slipped from fourth on the overnight grid to sixth in the final line-up, but declared himself satisfied with the balance of his car. Ryan Hunter-Reay's fortunes took a turn for the better, the American qualifying seventh despite some residual low-speed understeer, the bugbear that has hindered him all season on road and street courses.

Junqueira, Jimmy Vasser (PKV Racing) and Mario Dominguez (Herdez Competition) rounded out the top ten. Junqueira's day was a nightmare from the word go. The Brazilian crashed heavily at the fast downhill Turn 9 in morning practice, giving his mechanics a busy lunchtime as they hastily repaired the undertray and front suspension of his primary car, and then struggled to find the handling "sweet spot" on his qualifying runs.

Guy Smith posted his best qualifying performance to date to line up 14th, just over a second behind Rocketsports team-mate Tagliani. "It's been a challenge for us to come in with a new engineer this weekend and find the right set-up, but we're definitely heading in the right direction," he said.

Fellow Yorkshireman Justin Wilson was an unaccustomed 15th, frustrated at his continued inability to arrive at a satisfactory set-up for the twisty, hilly Californian circuit. The Conquest Racing team has been alternating between hydraulic and standard differentials in an attempt to move up the order, but to little avail.

As a measure of the intensity of the competition at Laguna Seca this weekend, the top ten qualifiers were blanketed by just 0.73s.