Qualifying: Kristensen claims pole

"It's good to go quickest on a circuit that not all of us have visited before," said Kristensen. "The team have done a fantastic job, working flat out to repair the car after my accident at Mosport. They had to change the monocoque in a very short period of time."

"I would have liked to have pole," said Brabham, "but we had a small problem with the balance into the corners so I knew it would be hard to achieve. I'm happy to start on the front row." Team mate Klaus Graf also suffered from lack of balance and had to settle for fifth.

Few of the cars will have achieved their full potential given the lack of track time and the poor weather that afflicted the practice periods. Kristensen and several other drivers unfamiliar with the circuit enlisted the expertise of Mid-Ohio race school instructor and NBC TV commentator Calvin Fish prior to qualifying.

Didier de Radigues took his fourth straight LMP675 pole in Dick Barbour Racing's Reynard-Judd. The Belgian believes there is yet more speed in the car.

"It was not very easy because the conditions changed between this morning and this afternoon," he said. "We are still improving the car's set-up."

A big shunt for Shane Lewis in the AVR Viper brought GTS/GT qualifying to an early conclusion, but matters were already pretty much settled in favour of the Saleen S7-R in GTS. Terry Borcheller took the class pole by six tenths of a second from the Corvette C5-R of Mosport winner Ron Fellows.

"That was it," said Fellows. "We weren't going to go any faster. But we made a pretty conservative tyre choice and he [Borcheller] did a 1:27 on his first flying lap, which suggests to me that he was on a fairly soft tyre. So we'll see what starts to happen 25 laps into the race tomorrow."

Sascha Maassen had just put the Alex Job Racing McKenna Porsche 911 on GT pole, eight thousandths of a second ahead of JJ Lehto's BMW M3 GTR, when the session was red-flagged, denying the BMWs a chance to respond.

Kyser Racing were quickest of the privateer Porsche squads, although Joe Foster spun off shortly after setting his quickest lap.
Autosport-backed driver Johnny Mowlem had a scare in practice this morning when a suspension upright broke as he went over a bump on a fast part of the course. The car was patched up in time for qualifying and will start seventh in GT.




Tom Kristensen/Rinaldo Capello, Audi R8, 1m14.537s
David Brabham/Jan Magnussen Panoz LMP1-RS, 1m14.910s
Frank Biela/Emanuele Pirro, Audi R8 1m15.150s
Johnny Herbert/Andy Wallace, Audi R8 1m15.921s
Klaus Graf/Franck Lagorce, Panoz LMP1-RS, 1m16.116s
Emmanuel Collard/Christophe Tinseau, Cadillac LMP 01 1m16.419s
James Weaver/Butch Leitzinger, Riley & Scott MkIIIC-Lincoln, 1m16.551s
Jon Field/Joel Field/Clint Field Lola B2K 10B-Judd, 1m17.119s
Wayne Taylor/Max Angelelli, Cadillac LMP 01, 1m17.403s
Didier de Radigues/Bruno Lambert, Reynard 01Q-Judd, 1m19.403s

Terry Borcheller/Franz Konrad, Saleen SR, 1m21.401s

Sascha Maassen, Lucas Luhr, Porsche 911 GT3 RS, 1m24.451s