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Qualifying: Biela heads record breakers

Frank Biela led a record-setting American Le Mans Series qualifying session Saturday at Mosport International Raceway to win the pole for Sunday's Grand Prix of Mosport. Three of the four class-winning pole speeds were track record laps

While Audi Sport North America driver Biela was winning his fourth pole of the season, Terry Borcheller stunned the crowd with a record-setting lap in the GTS class that snapped Ron Fellows' six-race pole-winning streak, his first pole this year in the Konrad Motorsports Saleen S7R. Borcheller's lap time was 1m15.986s (116.500mph) on the 2.459-mile, 10-turn circuit.

Fellows, who lives near the track in the Toronto suburb of Mississagua, had won the GTS class pole in every ALMS race this season. The Chevrolet Corvette C5-R driver was attempting to set a series record for the most poles by any driver in any class, but was upset at his home track by Borcheller for the second-straight year.

Biela drove his Audi R8 prototype to a lap of 1m07.169s (131.793mph), more than a second faster than the previous track record. He attributed the increased speed to improvements to the Audi as well as some concrete patches on the track.

"The car was good right from the start of practice," said Biela, who will co-drive with Emanuele Pirro in Sunday's race. "This is a track that's really fun to drive but you have to be on your game; you don't want to go off the track here."

The second Audi factory car co-driven by Rinaldo Capello and ALMS points leader Tom Kristensen will start second, followed by the Champion Audi of Johnny Herbert and Stefan Johansson. Herbert jumped from sixth to third with a fast lap in the closing moments of the qualifying session.

The Cadillac prototypes that showed good form in Friday's wet practice session couldn't hang with the Audis in qualifying, but did outqualify the Panoz machines.

Jon Field picked up his fourth pole of the season in the LMP 675 class in a Lola EX257 AER-MG, setting a track record of 1m09.730s (126.953mph). Lucas Luhr won his third GT class pole in the Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RS with a time of 1m20.939s (109.371mph). He and co-driver Sascha Maassen have won four of the six ALMS races run this season.

Frank Biela/Emanuele Pirro Audi R8 LMP 900 1m07.139s
Rinaldo Capello/Tom Kristensen Audi R8 LMP 900 1m07.720s
Johnny Herbert/Stefan Johansson Audi R8 LMP 900 1m08.366s
Max Angelelli/JJ Lehto Cadillac Northstar LMP 02 LMP 900 1m08.483s
Eric Bernard/Emmanuel Collard Cadillac Northstar LMP 02 LMP 900 1m08.822s
David Brabham/Jan Magnussen Panoz LMP-1 LMP 900 1m09.123s
Jon Field/Michael Durand Lola EX257-AER MG LMP 675 1m09.730s
Bryan Herta/Bill Auberlen Panoz LMP-1 LMP 900 1m10.451s
Claudia Huertgen/Steve Knight/Mel Hawkins Lola EX257-AER MG LMP 675 1m10.854s
Clint Field/Marc Neuhaus Lola B2K10-Judd LMP 900 1m15.104s

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