Qualifying 1: Da Matta makes his point

However, no one was able to beat Cristiano or Bruno Junqueira, whose 58.724-second lap held up for second. Paul Tracy improved to third fastest just a few seconds prior to the chequered flag, and though the local hero bettered his time by a few thousandths on his final tour, it didn't elevate him to the front row.

?I guess in hindsight I didn't need to go out again, but I was 100 percent sure someone would beat my time,? da Matta remarked. ?Of course, I never figured I would make a mistake. But you have to try hard all the time in qualifying. I think that's my first one of the season, so that's not too bad.?

Da Matta's car turned so sharply left in the bumpy braking zone for Turn Three that it seemed certain that a suspension component had broken. But the 28-year old admitted the error was his.

?I just went in too deep,? he shrugged. ?I locked up the rear brakes and thought I was going to catch it, but it caught me on the downshift when I only had one hand on the steering wheel. With one hand, I had no chance.?

Junqueira has proven to be da Matta's closest competition for the last two races, but he is now 26 points behind his countryman in the CART point standings.

?Maybe I'll lock Cristiano in the restroom or something,? Junqueira joked. ?If I knew a strategy to beat him, I would be doing it. I'm just trying to stay consistent on all kinds of circuits and waiting for Cristiano to struggle a little.

?My car was good, but we made it worse with some big changes for the second set of tyres,? he added. ?When Cristiano crashed, I though I had a chance to improve but I didn't.?

Tracy satisfied the hometown fans with his late charge to third. ?It was a good lap,? he said. ?I had a lot of traffic so I had to do a couple extra laps on the tyres. I'm very happy with the job Team Kool Green did today. It was our first time on a street course with the Lola and we kind of guessed at the set-up. But the car was good.?

The same three teams filled the next four spaces on the grid, with Ganassi's Kenny Brack fourth ahead of Dario Franchitti (Green), Scott Dixon (Ganassi) and Christian Fittipaldi (Newman/Haas). But Team Green technical partner Michael Andretti continued to raise questions about his commitment to the Champ Car series with a disappointing run to 17th out of 18, 1.3 seconds off the pole time.