Vancouver qualifying: Tag leads Canadian 1-2

The Forsythe Racing duo, who are sponsored by Canadian cigarette maker Player's, got a big hand from their countryman Paul Tracy, whose spin with less than three minutes remaining ended the qualifying session and guaranteed the popular result. Tracy qualified eighth.

Tagliani posted his lap of 60.872 seconds (105.329 mph) early during the second group's 30 minutes of track time after an early red flag for Cristiano da Matta's spin.

He was assisted by two more reds, the first for an off by Scott Dixon and then finally Tracy's trip into the Turn 7 tyre wall. That and the usual heavy traffic on the 1.781-mile street circuit kept most of his closest competitors from having the chance to put in a flying qualifying lap.

Carpentier came closest, notching a 60.924 on his final lap just seconds before the red flag flew for Tracy's incident. The top five cars were separated by 0.122 second, with Gil de Ferran third, Kenny Brack fourth and Helio Castroneves fifth.

It was Taglian's second career Champ Car pole, the first having come at Rio in 2000. The pole-winning lap earned Tagliani the Greg Moore Pole Award, named for the late Canadian star who made his home in Vancouver.

"I'm really pleased and honoured," Tagliani remarked. "I got pretty emotional when Mr Moore presented the trophy. We're all racers and want to do well, but to do it here in Canada in front of all of our fans and friends makes it even more special. And to have both blue and white cars on the front row is a great tribute to Greg."

Tagliani has endured an up-and-down two year Champ Car career, but he showed signs of putting things together when he finished second at Toronto in July. The 28-year old had finished in the top eight in all four races since Toronto, while team mate Carpentier took his first Champ Car win at Michigan and added two more podium finishes.

"Last year I didn't know all the tracks and the car was brand new to me," Tagliani said. "The car wasn't as fast as this year's car, so I was trying to make up for that on the track. This year, with more experience and a better baseline set-up, we're sitting out, saving tyres and running only when we need to.

"Pat and I are working really hard and we have the support of the crew and the engineers," he added. "The only way to give a big thank you to the guys is with a result, and I'm very happy for them today."

Carpentier has been the hottest driver in the CART series since his breakthrough win at Michigan in July. That came on the heels of five straight DNFs to start the season.

"Team Penske has been dominating, but Team Player's has been coming on strong and that's a lot of fun to be a part of," said Carpentier. "We've scored the most points as a team over the last five races, and that certainly didn't look possible at the beginning of the season.

"I tried my hardest to beat Alex, but he did a good job," Patrick added with a smile. "I hit the wall about five times today and the sidewalls of my tyres are white. But I had no choice. There are only hundredths of a second between me and the guys behind. Over the course of a lap, you can't even clap your hands that quickly."

De Ferran came closest to topping the Player's duo, clocking 60.933 seconds in his Penske Reynard-Honda.

"My problem wasn't so much the red flags as it was me," admitted the Brazilian. "I had a little too much oversteer. I actually had three laps where I was ahead of my best lap, but I made mistakes over the last three corners of the lap. But that's what it's all about ­ getting it all together."

De Ferran said that he expected the ultimate pace to be quicker than it ended up being. Dario Franchitti holds the Vancouver track record at 60.405 seconds.

"I thought we were going to be in the 60.4 to 60.5 range," de Ferran said. "But I had more oversteer than I did in the morning. Maybe the track changed a little bit. The fact that it was a bit hotter than this morning probably had a little to do with it."

Brack was 0.01 second slower than de Ferran to take fourth. The Swede is looking for a reversal of fortune after a series of bad results cost him the CART championship lead.

"Things came around this afternoon," he commented. "We didn't get a chance to have an all-out lap at the end because of the red flag."

Castroneves also suffered traffic trouble, while Bruno Junqueira was happy to wind up sixth after pacing the first group with a 61.194-second lap.

Track record holder Franchitti was probably the unhappiest driver in Vancouver after qualifying 19th on 62.074 seconds.

"Our problem today really started two weeks ago at Road America when I went off course and caused a red flag during qualifying," Dario said. "That meant I had to sit out the last eight minutes of today's session, which meant we were only going to get 22 minutes of qualifying today in the best of circumstances. So the two red flags made the situation even worse.

"We never even got the tyres up to pressure or temperature," he added. "The car ran pretty well in practice on old tyres, so we're optimistic that we'll have a good race car. But realistically, starting 19th is going to make for a difficult race."

For full qualifying results click here.