Qualifying 1: Da Matta yet again
Cristiano da Matta extended his CART championship lead to 49 points and guaranteed himself a front row starting spot for Sunday's Champ Car round at Cleveland by grabbing the provisional pole on Friday.
The 28-year old Brazilian toured the bumpy Burke Lakefront Airport circuit in 57.641 seconds (131.531 mph) to lead Tony Kanaan and Scott Dixon.
It marked the ninth consecutive road racing qualifying session in which da Matta ran first or second. His margin over Kanaan in Friday's session was 0.451 second - the same spread that covered the next seven qualifiers.
"The car is working very well right now," da Matta remarked. "I got some traffic on my first run and lost another lap when I made a mistake. But I got clear laps on the second set and managed to record a good time."
Kanaan had his best run on a road course since the Mo Nunn team switched from Reynard to Lola chassis six races ago.
"It's been a struggle trying to understand what the Lola wants," Kanaan said after clocking a 58.092-second lap. "It's a completely different car to the Reynard and we haven't had the benefit of any testing with it."
Scott Dixon paced the three-car Ganassi Racing attack by running third, with his team-mates Bruno Junqueira eighth and Kenny Brack 12th. Brack's car looked particularly difficult through Cleveland's wide-open sweepers.
Michael Andretti posted his best qualifying performance of the season to run fourth in his Motorola Lola-Honda. "I finally started the weekend with a race car underneath me," noted the American.
Christian Fittipaldi was fifth fastest ahead of Jimmy Vasser and Dario Franchitti, while Paul Tracy rounded out Team Green's effort in ninth place, 1.007 second off da Matta's time.
Cristiano da Matta Newman-Haas Lola-Toyota 57.641s 131.531mph
Tony Kanaan Mo Nunn Racing 58.092s 130.510mph
Scott Dixon Ganassi Lola-Toyota 58.094s 130.506mph
Michael Andretti Team Motorola Lola-Honda 58.111s 130.468mph
Christian Fittipaldi Newman-Haas Lola-Toyota 58.211s 130.243mph
Jimmy Vasser Team Rahal Lola-Ford 58.477s 129.651mph
Dario Franchitti Team Green Lola-Honda 58.515s 129.567mph
Bruno Junqueira Ganassi Lola-Toyota 58.550s 129.489mph
Paul Tracy Team Green Lola-Honda 58.648s 129.273mph
Patrick Carpentier Player's Reynard-Ford 58.688s 129.185mph
Kenny Brack Ganassi Lola-Toyota 58.713s 129.130mph
Alex Tagliani Player's Reynard-Honda 58.757s 129.033mph
Townsend Bell Patrick Racing Reynard-Toyota 58.758s 129.031mph
Tora Takagi Walker Racing Lola-Toyota 58.804s 128.930mph
Michel Jourdain Jr Team Rahal Lola-Ford 58.873s 128.779mph
Adrian Fernandez Fernandez Lola-Honda 59.297s 127.858mph
Mario Dominguez Herdez Lola-Ford 59.376s 127.688mph
Shinji Nakano Alpine-Mitsubishi Lola-Honda 59.660s 127.080mph
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