Junqueira snatches Portland pole

The Brazilian beat yesterday's pole-sitter AJ Allmendinger by just 0.008 seconds to give Newman/Haas its fourth pole position out of five races this year. Junqueira's teammate Sebastien Bourdais took third, and was remarkably just 0.015 seconds off the pole time.

RuSPORT's Justin Wilson and Cristiano da Matta took fourth and fifth, precisely 0.2 seconds apart, but Forsythe Championship Racing's Paul Tracy had a nightmare session, ending it in 10th, almost three quarters of a second from pole.

Elsewhere in the field, the drivers who have struggled to match their teammates this year appeared to follow Junqueira's lead, as Britain's Dan Clarke outperformed CTE Racing-HVM team-mate Nelson Philippe, and Will Power has outqualified Team Australia partner Alex Tagliani. Clarke thus starts as top rookie in a brilliant sixth place.

One of the most surprising performances came from Nicky Pastorelli of Rocketsports Racing, who has qualified 11th, ahead of both PKV Racing entries, and both Conquest Racing cars too.

Due to noise regulations on a Sunday morning here in Portland, Oregon, the race warm-up will take place later today, at 1730h local time, 0130h UK time.

Qualifying times:

Pos  Driver              Team                Time
 1.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman/Haas       57.631
 2.  AJ Allmendinger     Forsythe          57.639  + 0.008
 3.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas       57.646  + 0.015
 4.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT           57.818  + 0.187
 5.  Cristiano da Matta  RuSPORT           58.018  + 0.387
 6.  Dan Clarke          CTE-HVM           58.214  + 0.583
 7.  Will Power          Team Australia    58.244  + 0.613
 8.  Nelson Philippe     CTE-HVM           58.297  + 0.666
 9.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia    58.328  + 0.697
10.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe          58.376  + 0.745
11.  Nicky Pastorelli    Rocketsports      58.826  + 1.195
12.  Oriol Servia        PKV               58.830  + 1.199
13.  Andrew Ranger       Conquest          58.885  + 1.254
14.  Mario Dominguez     Dale Coyne        59.233  + 1.602
15.  Katherine Legge     PKV               59.297  + 1.666
16.  Charles Zwolsman    Conquest          59.315  + 1.684
17.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne        59.589  + 1.958
18.  Tonis Kasemets      Rocketsports    1:00.607  + 2.976