Qualifying: Moreno pips de Ferran

De Ferran, who sat on pole for much of the session, had to serve a penalty for causing a red flag which meant he had to sit out the final eight minutes of qualifying. The Penske driver had earlier had to abort a better lap when Max Papis crashed bringing out the red flag. "Moreno did a great job to take pole under pressure with the time," admitted a disappointed de Ferran, "but our car is good, and I know that we could have done the time Moreno did, but that's life, and rules are rules.We'll have to see what happens tomorrow. I just hope it's not a race full of yellows tomorrow, because that makes it a lottery, and I'm not much of a gambler."

In a similar situation last year, de Ferran came to Surfers Paradise with a healthy championship lead, and qualified on the front row only to crash out at the first corner with Juan Pablo Montoya. He's naturally hoping that history will not repeat itself. "I'm not taking anything for granted. Everything is looking good right now, but you have to make it through the first turn on the first lap."

De Ferran's main CART title rival Kenny Brack brushed the wall early on in the session damaging the left front wheel, and looked to be heading for a starting spot outside the top 20 until an aggressive final lap saw him jump up the order to 13th. "I was actually on my warm-up lap, and the car turned in better than before, and I hit the inside wall. The team did a great job to put it back together. I was basically left with one run and no time for any changes. The lap we got was actually pretty good, and we maybe could have gone better. But we didn't have a pole car."

Moreno's pole comes in his 100th CART start. "It just shows how important it is to be in the quick group," he said. "My crash in the first race put us in the 'slow' group, and it has handicapped us pretty much all season. In Vancouver we got into the other group, and since then we've been competitive, and here we are on pole, which shows what we can do. You never know how this race goes: sometimes the yellows do a favour to the guys at the back, other times it helps the guys leading the races."

Third place went to Cristiano da Matta, with Team Green team mates, Paul Tracy, Dario Franchitti and Michael Andretti right behind him. Franchitti had been in the top three for most of the session, but missed the first chicane on his final lap and was bumped in the final moments by Moreno and Tracy.

The first qualifying group's session was interrupted by four red flags, with Mauricio Gugelmin suffering a small fracture in his hand after hitting the Turn three wall. His ability to race tomorrow will be assessed by CART's Dr Steve Olvey. Alex Barron, in the Arciero Blair car instead of Max Wilson, was lucky to eascape unhurt from a nasty looking crash which wiped the entire right-hand side of the car off, ending up hard against the wall.

Click here for qualifying results.