Qualifying 2: Jourdain Jr wins pole

The Team Rahal star was fifth on the overnight grid, but he performed when it counted by extracting a lap of 1m08.177s from his Gigante Lola-Ford, taking the pole from Friday fast man Paul Tracy. Tracy tapped the wall early in Saturday's final qualifying session and bent a rear toe link, and the Canadian was unable to respond to Jourdain's effort.

Alex Tagliani was second fastest on Saturday, and he will share the second row for Sunday's 105-lap race with Bruno Junqueira.

"We talked about the need to qualify better all the time," Jourdain remarked. "Last year qualifying killed us. We raced well, but we just started too far back to achieve any real success. Many years our strategy wasn't good and it seemed something always happened.

"We've only had three races this year, but it's better," he added. "Today we did a longer second run and I was able to do a good lap near the end. We have to keep doing the same thing when we get to the ovals and the permanent road courses."

Tracy bent the left rear suspension of his Player's Lola-Ford early in the 40-minute session. After repairs, the Canadian returned to the track but his best lap Saturday was a 1m08.729s.

"We had a good car all weekend and I wanted to retain the pole," he said. "But I touched the wall and that ended our hopes for that. The good thing is that we used only one set of tyres and have four new sets left for the race."

Tagliani did a great job for the first-year Rocketsports team despite losing engineer Andy Borme to Conquest Racing last week.

"I met my new engineers (Will Phillips and Adam Schaechter) on Friday morning," Tagliani said after running 1m08.371s in the Johnson Controls Lola/Ford. "Things are coming together like a puzzle. It wasn't easy, but we were lucky we had a good car off the truck. We didn't have to change it much and that helped the new guys learn. Plus, I'm working hard on setups and I really like the Lola."

Junqueira improved his time by 0.6s but fell from second to fourth. However, he out-qualified his rookie teammate Sebastien Bourdais for the first time, albeit by only 0.012s and one position.

"There were probably another two or three tenths in the car but I didn't get a clear lap," Bruno related.

Patrick Carpentier qualified sixth, while the top ten was rounded out by Adrian Fernandez, Oriol Servia, Roberto Moreno and Darren Manning. It marked Manning's first top-ten qualifying performance of the season.

"We changed virtually everything on the car overnight," Manning noted. "This morning we were always in the top ten, always within a second of the top guys, and there was probably more time to come yet with a few little changes. We've been able to work our way through the field in the last couple of races and the guys always give me great pit stops, so starting further up in the field can only help."