Long Beach, CA (My Sportsbook) - Bruno Junqueira captured the provisional pole for Sunday's season-opening Champ Car race - the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. The No.2 Newman/Haas Racing driver circled the 1.968-mile temporary street course in one minutes. 08.342 seconds (103.667 m.p.h.). The Brazilian earned one championship point for the provisional pole and a guaranteed front row starting position for the race. Paul Tracy, 2004 GP of Long Beach winner, was second fastest with a time of 1:08.494. Defending Champ Car Series titleholder Sebastien Bourdais (1:08.736) was third quickest. The Frenchman is coming off an eight pole, seven win performance which ranked among the best in Champ Car history. He led the series in victories, poles, laps led and qualifying average. "I'm obviously very proud of what we achieved last year, but that was last year," said Bourdais. Rising star Justin Wilson (1:08.884) and veteran Alex Tagliani (1:09.056) completed the top-five. A total of 19 drivers took to the track including seven rookies: Andrew Ranger, Ronnie Bremer, Bjorn Wirdheim, Timo Glock, Ricardo Sperafico, Marcus Marshall and Fabrizio del Monte. Ranger was the fastest of the rookies and was seventh quickest overall at 1:09.416. Final qualifying is set for Saturday at 5 p.m. (edt) with the race scheduled to begin on Sunday at 4 p.m. |
