Qualifying 1: Brack to front

"I was surprised to beat Cristiano, actually, because he was so fast here in testing it was unbelievable," Brack said after touring the 2.238-mile road California course in 1m10.066s. "The engineers have been working hard to keep us competitive, and we've been fast all season but we haven't been able to capitalise.

"I like the new qualifying rules - I can sleep tomorrow and still start on the front row!" he added.

Da Matta was just 0.037s slower in his similar Lola-Toyota.

"The car has been working for us on road courses," said da Matta, whose Newman/Haas team-mate Christian Fittipaldi ran fifth fastest. "Between Kenny and me it's very close, so it will be interesting tomorrow."

Patrick Carpentier was third fastest, but the French-Canadian driver lightly damaged his Player's/Forsythe Reynard-Ford on his last qualifying lap.

"Not a lot of stuff got bent," he related. "It's easily fixable and there are plenty of Reynards around for parts."

Tony Kanaan was fourth fastest in the Mo Nunn Lola-Honda, heading Fitttipaldi and Bruno Junqueira. Carpentier's team-mate Alex Tagliani rebounded from his morning session crash to qualify his spare car seventh fastest.

Team Green continued to struggle with the road course set-up on its three Lola-Hondas. Paul Tracy led the Green contingent in 13th place, just over a second off of Brack's time, while Michael Andretti and Dario Franchitti were 17th and 19th respectively.

"The car felt great at Mid-Ohio but it hasn't carried over to this track," Franchitti remarked. "We thought we knew the problem, but the car wasn't much better for qualifying."