American racing prodigy A.J. Allmendinger (#7 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) continued his march toward the top of the Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford standings, leading a qualifying session for the third consecutive race, pacing today’s opening session at the Molson Grand Prix of Toronto.

Allmendinger snapped off a quick lap of 58.621 seconds (107.777 mph) to lead the first day of qualifying around the 1.755-mile Exhibition Place street circuit, besting former RuSPORT teammate Justin Wilson (#9 CDW Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) by two-tenths of a second to score the first championship point of the weekend. Nelson Philippe (#34 CTE Racing – HVM Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) put up a quick time of 59.203 seconds (106.718 mph) late in the session to wrest the third spot away from hometown favorite Paul Tracy (#3 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone).

The Forsythe Championship Racing driver, who just yesterday signed a deal to extend his stay with the Chicago-based team, used a daring strategy and a new set of red-rimmed alternate Bridgestone Potenzas to take advantage of a rare bit of open track midway through today’s 30-minute qualifying session.

Allmendinger was one of the first drivers to pit after his first stint, and was sitting fifth after everyone else had logged their first set of times. Sitting in the pits, Allmendinger and his team realized that every other car was on the Pit Lane as well, and decided to roll out ahead of everyone else for their second stint.

“My engineer asked me if I wanted to go out or if I wanted to wait, because the track usually gets better with every lap somebody runs on it, and there were still 10 minutes left in the session,” Allmendinger said. “But we decided to go out and take advantage of the clear track and we ran three good, clean laps.”

Allmendinger’s time at that point was a full half-second quicker than that of Wilson, but the Brit soon began whittling away on that gap. Like Allmendinger and Tracy, Wilson came out for his second stint on the alternate tires, but would be unable to take full advantage later in his run as traffic slowed the charge.

Wilson was able to move to within the aforementioned two-tenths on the 11th of the 14 laps he ran in today’s session, but was unable to improve on that time on his next three passes as the defending Molson Grand Prix of Toronto champion settled for second.

Philippe used a quick late run to climb into the third spot, earning the best qualifying result of his three-year Champ Car career. One of just four drivers to use each of his 15 laps in first-round qualifying, Philippe hung up his quick lap on his 13th pass, leapfrogging Tracy with two minutes left in the session.

Two-time Toronto titlist Tracy was one of the few drivers to card his best time on his final lap of the session, stopping the clocks at 59.274 seconds (106.590 mph). Tracy actually held the lead in the session at the 13-minute mark, but fell back to fourth in the final listing. He took the fourth spot ahead of championship leader Sebastien Bourdais (#1 McDonald’s Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone), who ended his day in fifth.

Bourdais was in the top four after the first stint, but the two-time Toronto polesitter elected not to head back out for a second stint and ended his day in fifth with a time of 59.313 seconds (106.520 mph). 2002 Toronto winner Cristiano da Matta (#10 RuSPORT Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) wound up sixth followed by Bruno Junqueira (#2 Hole In The Wall Camps Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) and Oriol Servia (#6 Bell Micro Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone).

Charles Zwolsman (#34 Mi-Jack Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) was the top-finishing rookie in the opening session, using the last of his 15 laps to vault into the top 10, posting a time of 60.387 seconds (104.625 mph) to take the 10th position. Roshfrans Rookie-of-the-Year points leader Dan Clarke (#14 CTE Racing – HVM Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) was 14th overall and third among the rookies.

Driver Quotes:

A.J. Allmendinger #7 INDECK Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – The whole Forsythe team did a great job. It was probably the toughest day that we’ve had so far in the three weekends together. Obviously here in Toronto, it’s a difficult course as the drivers have said. You know, I think as a team we still have a lot of to improve on. The Bridgestone blacks we’re not as good on. But I knew we were fairly close to the pole. I saw Paul was going to put on the reds, I figure a couple people were. I knew they probably would make a lot bigger difference than, say, in Cleveland a couple weeks ago. We put on the reds. I held my breath for a lap, hung on to it.”

Justin Wilson #9 CDW Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “The Bridgestone tires worked really well. Still wasn’t enough for pole position. We took the gamble. We were pretty quick on the black tires. You know, things were working well. We saw AJ went red. We figured we had a good chance. Didn’t quite work out today. But considering we had a slight fire this morning, so we didn’t get much running in. You know, just really pleased the way that the CDW #9 crew have bounced back, given me a car that’s quick enough for top three.”

Nelson Philippe #4 CTE Racing –HVM Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “After practice, I felt pretty comfortable with the car. Just changed a couple things to make me a bit more comfortable with it. I mean, it paid off. Finally a top three qualifying position. I’ve been saying for the last two years that was a place to start. Finally I’m here, so it feels great.”

Sebastien Bourdais #1 McDonald’s Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “The McDonald’s team had a fairly good first run. We had quite a bit of traffic but put it in P2 (second fast). We were pretty close but then the other guys put the Bridgestone red’s (softer alternate tires) on and set faster times on their second runs. We had a small misunderstanding so we decided not to go back out on the second run and instead try to think about our setup and try to make it better for tomorrow.”

Oriol Servia #6 Gulfstream Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “I think the Gulfstream – PKV Racing team is very close to having a top-three car. I don’t think we have the speed to be on the pole, that isn’t there, but we are going to work on it but, we definitely have the speed for the top-three. We are basically looking for the magic .2 of a second, which would put us there. Overall, this was a good day because we kept up the momentum that we got in Cleveland. Also, I am very happy with the Gulfstream – PKV Racing car and I am confident heading into tomorrow’s final qualifying.”

Bruno Junqueira #2 Newman/Haas Racing Ford-Cosworth/Bridgestone/Lola – “The car was okay. I was close to P3 (third fastest time) on regular tires then some guys ran the Bridgestone alternate tires on their second runs. Everyone is very close apart from A.J.; he looks to have an edge. On the first outing I flat spotted one of my tires and got traffic on my second set but we will continue to improve the car and try to gain some positions in final qualifying.”

Alex Tagliani #15 Aussie Vineyards Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “This afternoon was a pretty big struggle for us. The car was a lot more slippery than this morning. Our car seems to work really well in cold weather, and I was struggling with the warm temperature, so hopefully tomorrow we can find the things that we need to improve. Today we ran on two sets of new tires the whole qualifying and its not really improving, its making the problem. This weekend is going to be hard because the competition is fierce. My strategy for the weekend is to work with the engineers and try to make some improvements and tomorrow evaluate the car again.”

Charles Zwolsman #34 Mi-Jack Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “I’m happy with today’s result, I got held up a couple of times earlier in the session but at the end I was able to get a good lap in and jump up to P10. We still have to work on the set-up of the car in order to get the right balance because you really had to squeeze the time out of it, but I think we’re in a good position to do even better now.”

Andrew Ranger #27 Tide Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “We’re doing okay but there is still lots to be done, especially in terms of finding more front grip. We will go back and compare data with Charles (Zwolsman) and try to find the right balance on the car because with the different track surfaces it can be a little bit tricky out there.”

Will Power #5 Aussie Vineyards Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “Unfortunately it doesn’t feel like we are using the new tires well enough. We don’t get the bite of them that we usually get. It’s something that we will definitely have to think about overnight and make changes so that we can get more out of the new tires, because we seem to be losing a lot there. We don’t have a good balance at the moment, so we are struggling a little bit out there in qualifying. It’s a slippery track because there are different surfaces everywhere. There are corners where you have cement patches where you have no grip at all. It makes it difficult to find a good balance and make the car work. Tonight we will go back and take a look at some data and decide what we are going to do with the car.”

Katherine Legge #20 Bell Micro Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “The Bell Micro – PKV Racing team is obviously disappointed with the way qualifying went today. But, we learned quite a bit for final qualifying tomorrow. My biggest problem is braking. For some reason I am having to brake massively early. We just have to go in, take a look at the data and see what we can come up with for tomorrow. The good news is that this is first qualifying and not final qualifying.”

Tonis Kasemets #18 Flexovit Abrasives/Rocketsports Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “This is the most comfortable car that I have driven so far for Rocketsports Racing, in terms of balance. I have to continue to work on my driving here in Toronto by going deeper into the corners and carrying more speed. I think we are in good shape. The Rocketsports team has done a good job on the #18 Flexovit Abrasive/Rocketsports car making improvements from Cleveland for this weekend, which has resulted in such a good car for me to drive. I think that we are headed in the right direction and more is to come from me and the team this weekend.”