Meanwhile, down in the Target pit stall, everything is coming together for Bruno Junqueira. He topped the times during morning warm-up and the team is really getting a handle on the car.

Hoping to reprise his super-sub role, Roberto Moreno is taking in practice while eating an ice cream. Careful - don't let it drip on your leather jacket, Pupo!

With the track warmer and the rubber laid down, the final fifteen minutes of qualifying are frantic. Everyone is trying to use their fifteen laps to best advantage. Here we see Dario coming out of the pits for another attempt at a fast lap.

Cristiano is second quickest: "I have never started on pole so it was something I really wanted. I felt we could do it but we came up 3000ths of a second short. It was really close. I was one-tenths of a second quicker on the last lap I was running but Michael crashed and the red came out. I think I had more in the car but it Jimmy and Bruno probably felt the same so I will never know.".

Jimmy Vasser secured the pole with a lap three thousandths of a second faster than Cristiano. It was his eighth career pole and his first since the Michigan 500 in 1999. "I have to give it to my Shell team today," he said. "They wanted to run the primary car for qualifying and I thought the backup car was quicker. So they changed things around really fast to have the backup ready for this afternoon.".