Rio qualifying highlights

14.47: Alex Tagliani goes third on lap one then snatches a stunning pole on his second lap in only his third CART race.

Current order:

Tagliani- 38.587s
Montoya- 38.696s
Tracy- 38.843s
Brack- 38.876s
Fittipaldi- 38.879s
Vasser- 38.943s
Castro Neves- 39.985s
Franchitti- 39.026s
Kanaan- 39.101
Papis- 39.227s
Gidley- 39.246s
Moreno- 39.265s
De Ferran- 39.298s
Servia- 39.306s
Andretti- 39.340s
Fernandez- 39.391s
Fontana- 39.504s
Kurosawa- 39.590s
Herta- 39.620s
Gugelmin- 39.682s
Jourdain- 39.856s
Blundell- 40.073s
Garcia- 41.053s
Da Matta- no time
Salles- no time

14.42: Montoya takes pole on his first lap by a significant margin but then pulls off on his second lap with an apparent mechanical problem.

14.38: Paul Tracy takes pole on his first lap but is marginally slower on his second. Only Montoya and Tagliani have yet to run.

14.33: Kenny Brack goes fourth on lap one then steals pole from Fittipaldi by just 0.003s. The crowd is less exuberant now...

14.29: Christian Fittipaldi sends the home crowd wild by pipping Vasser and taking provisional pole.

14.25: Max Papis runs some stunning warm-up laps but cannot qualify higher than fifth.

14.22: Kanaan takes fourth on his first lap but cannot improve his position on the second run despite going marginally faster.

14.17: Castro Neves goes third on his first run then improves to second on his final lap, narrowly slower than Vasser but significantly quicker than team mate De Ferran and the fastest Brazilian driver so far.


14.12: Jimmy Vasser's first lap puts him a disappointing ninth fastest, but his second run snatches provisional pole.

14.08: Adrian Fernandez pushes hard and runs very close to the turn four wall but can only manage seventh quickest.

14.04: Slightly disappointing qualifying effort for Gil de Ferran, polesitter at Homestead and Long Beach but only fourth quickest at home so far.

13.59: Michael Andretti has a poor lap and can only manage fifth quickest.

13.54: Dario Franchitti takes provisional pole by 0.2s after putting team-mate Paul Tracy's set-up on his car. This is by far the fastest the Scot has been yet this weekend.


13.51: Bryan Herta qualifies fifth so far in the Walker Racing entry.

13.44: Roberto Moreno comes out to huge cheers from his home crowd. His warm-up laps are slow but he then goes second fastest. Second flier looks quicker but he gets out of shape in turn four and may have clipped the wall. CART halts the session to check for debris.

13.39: Mark Blundell pushes hard but his car doesn't want to co-operate and he is faster only than the troubled Garcia Jr, Fontana and da Matta.

13.35: Da Matta also has to abandon his lap, he pulls off back into the pit lane with a mechanical problem.

13.33: The action resumes after a yellow period while spilt fluids from Fontana's car were cleared away. Cristiano da Matta is the next driver out on track.

13.26: Norberto Fontana slows at the end of his warm-up lap and pulls off with an apparent engine problem before he could even set a time.

13.25: Oriol Servia comes out to qualify and also has trouble on the second lap, sideways in turn three but still improving to go second fastest.

13.20: Takuya Kurosawa qualifies third with first run then improves to second with his next lap, despite locking his rear brakes into turn four

13.16: Memo Gidley comes out to qualify, second lap is slower after a small moment in turn three.

13.12: Mauricio Gugelmin, Michel Jourdain Jr and Luiz Garcia Jr are the first three drivers to qualify.