Qualifying: Junqueira holds on

Both of Junqueira's poles have come on oval tracks - the first was at Nazareth Speedway last year. After a poor outing at Long Beach, he is hoping to bring glory to Toyota on race day too.

"I'm really pleased," Junqueira said. "The car was perfect, and the balance was perfect. It's really good to start from the pole, but I still have to win the race. The first few laps will be really difficult, and I think it's going to be difficult to break away. I think there will be five or six cars fighting at the front all the way. You can't win the race until after the last pit stop."

The 25-year old Brazilian stole the pole from Kanaan on his first qualifying lap, then improved to a 25.907-second (215.108 mph) effort on his second lap. But he still had to withstand a last-gasp effort from Tracy. Junqueira's team-mate Kenny Brack will start fourth, followed by Dario Franchitti and Patrick Carpentier.

"Obviously my best wasn't good enough," said Kanaan after running 26.051 seconds. "But it's a good start. I need to finish a race, having had two DNFs. We're better off than we were two weeks ago and a month ago. Besides, nobody is going to remember who was on the pole after I win the race!"

Tracy said he made a mistake on his first lap in Turn 3, which in turn affected his second lap. Brack, meanwhile, was happy to lock up a spot on the second row.

"It was pretty good," said the defending Motegi race winner. "We'll see how it stacks up, but it's better than last year already. It all feels pretty good."

Franchitti finished second to Michael Andretti at Motegi in 2000 and he feels confident for this year's race after electing to run a Reynard-Honda rather than the Lolas being campaigned for the first time by his team-mates Tracy and Andretti.

"It wasn't bad," Dario remarked. "We had to take a bit of a gamble on the setup because we tried something this morning but we didn't get a full run because of the rain and the last yellow. We got only two laps of our qualifying simulation in, so we said, 'Let's take a gamble and see what we've got.' Fortunately it worked for the most part."

Pit strategy will play an important role in Sunday's race, with a minimum of five stops required over the course of the 201-lap event. Drivers can run a maximum of 38 laps between pit stops, and an extended pit lane speed zone means that those pilots pitting under green will lose two to three laps to the leaders.

However, the Motegi oval promotes clean racing and last year's race featured only two yellows and more than 180 consecutive laps of green flag racing.

For full qualifying results, click here.