Allmendinger on provisional pole

The American, dumped by RuSPORT little over a week ago, stormed to the top of the pack on his final lap of the session with a 58.378 second lap, guaranteeing a front-row grid slot for Sunday's race.

His switch to the red-walled softer tyres looked to be a waste when his warm-up run was interrupted by a red flag. However, when 16 of the 18 cars flooded onto the track for the final three minutes, he let many of them go ahead, and built up a gap ahead of him so as not to get blocked.

That meant he only just got past the start/finish line before the chequered flag fell, and it also meant his tyres weren't quite up to optimum temperature as he started his lap, resulting in a slightly lurid moment coming out of the first chicane.

However, the lap came together and he sneaked ahead of erstwhile top man Sebastien Bourdais of Newman/Haas Racing, who didn't run on reds.

Paul Tracy stayed on the harder black compound too, and spun at Turn 7. Both he and Bourdais felt a lack of grip at Turns 6 and 7, and Forsythe are going to pull Tracy's car apart tonight to locate the problem.

Will Power and Alex Tagliani produced fourth and fifth fastest times for Team Australia, but Dan Clarke was ahead of them both until he was docked his quickest time for causing the red flag. He thus ended up eighth, just behind CTE-Racing-HVM team-mate Nelson Philippe.

RuSPORT had a surprisingly downbeat session. Justin Wilson went off course on his fifth lap, and could do no better than sixth fastest, while Cristiano da Matta ended up 10th in his first qualifying session for the squad.

Jan Heylen did a superb job for Dale Coyne Racing to go 13th fastest and beat new teammate Mario Dominguez. The pair were split by Katherine Legge, who wound up just half a second off ninth-placed PKV Racing teammate Oriol Servia.

Friday qualifying times:

Pos Driver              Team                Time
 1. AJ Allmendinger     Forsythe          58.378
 2. Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas       58.464  + 0.086
 3. Paul Tracy          Forsythe          59.121  + 0.743
 4. Will Power          Team Australia    59.160  + 0.782
 5. Alex Tagliani       Team Australia    59.275  + 0.897
 6. Justin Wilson       RuSPORT           59.283  + 0.905
 7. Nelson Philippe     CTE-HVM           59.354  + 0.976
 8. Dan Clarke          CTE-HVM           59.416  + 1.038
 9. Oriol Servia        PKV               59.485  + 1.107
10. Cristiano da Matta  RuSPORT           59.575  + 1.197
11. Bruno Junqueira     Newman/Haas       59.576  + 1.198
12. Andrew Ranger       Conquest          59.633  + 1.255
13. Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne        59.861  + 1.483
14. Katherine Legge     PKV               59.903  + 1.525
15. Mario Dominguez     Dale Coyne      1:00.035  + 1.657
16. Nicky Pastorelli    Rocketsports    1:00.333  + 1.955
17. Charles Zwolsman    Conquest        1:00.612  + 2.234
18. Tonis Kasemets      Rocketsports    1:01.089  + 2.711