Wilson grabs first season pole

The British RuSPORT driver clocked a time of 58.182 seconds to lap the circuit at an average of 108.590mph and beat provisional pole-sitter AJ Allmendinger, who had looked like the man to beat again today.

The Forsythe Championship Racing driver was less than a tenth of a second slower than his erstwhile teammate, and less than a tenth of a second up on defending champion Sebastien Bourdais.

The Frenchman seemed to hit traffic on his qualifying runs, but did enough to keep third place out of reach of second Forsythe driver Paul Tracy.

Oriol Servia put his PKV Racing entry fifth, continuing the momentum he and the team started at Cleveland two weeks ago.

Conquest Racing's Andrew Ranger proved his morning's performance wasn't just a flash in the pan by heading an incredibly tight battle between sixth and tenth places, which are covered by just 0.061 seconds, and contains Nelson Philippe (CTE Racing-HVM), Cristiano da Matta (RuSPORT), Bruno Junqueira (Newman/Haas) and Alex Tagliani (Team Australia).

Mario Dominguez and Jan Heylen did a fine job for Dale Coyne Racing (11th and 13th respectively), and sandwich best rookie, Will Power of Team Australia.

A lurid accident for Dan Clarke (CTE Racing-HVM) in the opening minutes of the session saw the Briton's car snap left into a wall under heavy brakng for Turn 3, and restrict him to the back of the grid.

Combined qualifying results:

Pos  Driver              Team                   Time              Laps
 1.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT                  58.182           26
 2.  A.J. Allmendinger   Forsythe Championship    58.264 + 0.082   24
 3.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman Haas              58.345 + 0.163   17
 4.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe Championship    58.576 + 0.394   29
 5.  Oriol Servia        PKV                      58.920 + 0.738   25
 6.  Andrew Ranger       Mi-Jack Conquest         59.059 + 0.877   28
 7.  Nelson Philippe     CTE HVM                  59.091 + 0.909   29
 8.  Cristiano da Matta  RuSPORT                  59.102 + 0.920   27
 9.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman Haas              59.116 + 0.934   25
10.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia           59.120 + 0.938   27
11.  Mario Dominguez     Dale Coyne               59.637 + 1.455   24
12.  Will Power          Team Australia           59.687 + 1.505   26
13.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne             1:00.132 + 1.950   27
14.  Charles Zwolsman    Mi-Jack Conquest       1:00.176 + 1.994   30
15.  Katherine Legge     PKV                    1:00.276 + 2.094   29
16.  Dan Clarke          CTE HVM                1:00.688 + 2.506   16
17.  Tonis Kasemets      Rocketsports           1:01.182 + 3.000   30