Qualifying 2: Junqueira snatches pole

The Chip Ganassi driver was trying to improve his time when he came upon Shinji Nakano, who had slowed drastically after putting two wheels off at the exit of Canada Corner. Junqueira was accelerating out of the third-gear right-hander at speed when his left-front wheel just clipped Nakano's right rear, sending Bruno's Lola-Toyota into a spin and backwards into a tyre wall. Junqueira was angry but uninjured.

"I did my time on my second lap," Junqueira reported. "On my third lap, I made a mistake, and I was pushing hard on my last lap when I saw Nakano about ten car lengths ahead of me. He got into the gravel trap and I thought he would continue at speed. But he almost stopped and I had to spin the car to avoid hitting him."

Da Matta was one of only three drivers who failed to improve on their Friday time, but he only dropped to second overall.

"Today wasn't as good for me as yesterday," remarked the championship leader. "I was caught out by [Adrian] Fernandez's red flag on my first set of tyres and after that it was traffic, traffic, traffic. I didn't think it would be such a problem on a 4-mile long track, but I guess I was wrong."

Saturday morning practice leader Alex Tagliani qualified third on 1m42.684s, while Team Green's Paul Tracy also made an improvement, jumping from eighth to fourth ahead of Scott Dixon.

Tracy's team-mate Dario Franchitti dropped from third to sixth. Franchitti had a spin exiting Turn 6 and later suffered a front suspension component failure.

"I was coming into Canada Corner and the steering turned 90 degrees when I wanted to go straight," he said. "Obviously something was broken, and the guys discovered we had a bolt snap on the front suspension. The car felt great in the fast corners, but I have massive oversteer exiting slow corners and we have some work to do for tomorrow in that respect."

Kenny Brack qualified seventh, giving the Ganassi team three cars in the top seven, while Fernandez, Oriol Servia and Nakano rounded out the top ten. The hard luck award once again went to Tony Kanaan, who finally posted a qualifying speed only to lose another Honda engine in his Mo Nunn Lola.