Tracy takes first blood

Nothing is ever quite as uneventful as that where Tracy is concerned, however. At Vancouver last year he was stripped of the Friday pole for blocking rivals during qualifying, and he was found guilty of a similar offence this year - albeit in less controversial circumstances. Officials docked him his best lap, but this time he retained provisional pole on the strength of his second fastest time.

"We didn't get off to a good start this morning," said Tracy, "but we made a few small changes in the afternoon and the car came alive during qualifying. We decided to go out early because we didn't want to run into traffic, which is always a problem here late in the session. That meant I had to sit and watch at the end, and it was hard knowing the Newman-Haas cars were out there taking a shot at me, but fortunately I was able to lock out the pole."

Newman-Haas Racing's Sebastien Bourdais gave Tracy a few anxious moments in the closing stages of an exciting 35-minute session that was uninterrupted by red flags. The Frenchman, who has won four of the last five races and leads the points standings, came up just 0.1s short and was the only man to offer Tracy a serious challenge.

Patrick Carpentier was third quickest in the second of the Forsythe Lolas, despite a faux pas at the end of the session when he didn't hear a radio message from his team informing him that he had used his full allotment of laps. Upon realising his error the French-Canadian pulled off in the nearest run-off area, but still had his fastest lap disallowed. As with Tracy, however, Carpentier's penalty didn't affect his provisional grid placing.

Practice pacesetter Bruno Junqueira completed the Forsythe/Newman-Haas symmetry by posting the fourth fastest time. The Brazilian encountered a mysterious vibration on his second set of tyres but admitted that in any case he has some work to do to get on terms with Tracy. Alex Tagliani was best of the rest for Rocketsports, finding that a mid-session set-up change wasn't enough to dial out unwelcome understeer. The Herdez Competition duo of Ryan Hunter-Reay and Mario Dominguez were sixth and eighth quickest, sandwiched by Oriol Servia.

Ninth-fastest Memo Gidley made an excellent impression on his second outing with Rocketsports, having stepped into the car at the 11th hour two weeks ago at Toronto following a "contractual glitch" between the team and French teenager Nelson Philippe. Gidley has a busy weekend ahead of him due to a prior commitment to race a Ford Focus, sponsored by the Air Force Reserve, in the SPEED World Challenge Touring Car series at Portland International Raceway. With the assistance of two helicopters and a Learjet, Gidley will leave Vancouver immediately after qualifying ends (at 2.45pm) and plans to be at PIR, 270 miles to the south, in time for the 4.15pm start!

Jimmy Vasser rounded out the top 10 for PKV Racing, while top rookies AJ Allmendinger and Justin Wilson were closely matched in 11th and 12th respectively. The Brit said he was enjoying his first acquaintance with the Vancouver track, which features an unusually flowing layout of medium-speed corners as well as the standard diet of 90-degree turns and hairpins, and one bumpy, flat-in-sixth sweeper which Wilson said "gets your attention".