SAN JOSE, Calif. (July 29, 2006) – The newly-revamped street course that winds through the center of San Jose has been vastly improved over last year, with the repairs and changes yielding times yesterday that were nearly five full seconds quicker than those of a year ago. Times fell even lower in today’s final round of qualifying for the Canary Foundation Grand Prix of San Jose Presented by Taylor Woodrow – but the man at the top of the order gave a repeat performance from last year’s inaugural Champ Car show.

Defending San Jose winner Sebastien Bourdais (#1 McDonald’s Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) will start Sunday’s 97-lap race from the pole as he did a year ago, taking his fifth Bridgestone Pole Position of the season and the 23rd of his career, setting a new track record of 48.989 seconds (106.040 mph) around the 1.443-mile street circuit.

Bourdais used his first set of Bridgestone Potenzas to full advantage, finding clear track that allowed him to lower his time gradually over a series of four laps, eventually logging the only 48-second lap of the weekend to claim the pole. He actually took the pole from Friday leader Paul Tracy (#3 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) on his fifth lap, and posted his best time on his seventh trip around the course.

Tracy ended up second by virtue of leading Friday’s session, even though he ran just the fourth-best lap of Saturday’s final round. The Canadian star ended up with an official time of 49.810 seconds (104.292 mph), that time going in the books when Tracy was penalized with the loss of his fastest lap after being found guilty of blocking. The Forsythe Championship Racing driver will start in the front row for the second time this season, gridding on the outside of the front row in tomorrow’s event.

Tracy’s teammate A.J. Allmendinger (#7 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) carded the second-best lap of the day and will start third after clocking in with a best time of 49.264 seconds (105.448 mph). Allmendinger used the last of his 15-lap allotment to post his best time, improving by nearly two-tenths of a second over his last five laps. The Californian has started in the top four in each event this season, the only Champ Car driver this season to accomplish the feat, and has 10 top-four starts in a row dating back to the 2005 season.

As he has done in each of the last three qualifying sessions, Tracy was the first car on course, looking to take advantage of some clear track. He lowered his Friday-leading time on his sixth pass and completed his entire opening stint before the remainder of the championship contenders rolled onto the course. Will Power (#5 Aussie Vineyards Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) made the most noticeable jump over the start of the session, running second after ten minutes of the session. The leader in the Roshfrans Rookie-of-the-Year standings, Power’s run was made even more impressive by the fact that he never turned a wheel in Friday qualifying after a morning crash.

Bourdais then came out and vaulted to the top of the charts while Allmendinger came out and logged the second best time just before rolling in for a tire change. Meanwhile behind the top three, Power led a fierce battle that included Oriol Servia (#6 Bell Micro/Gulfstream Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) and Cristiano da Matta (#10 RuSPORT Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) in the fight for a second-row grid position.

Servia climbed to fourth with 10 minutes to run in the session, only to see da Matta’s lap of 49.659 seconds (104.609 mph) drop him back a position three minutes later. Meanwhile, Justin Wilson (#9 CDW Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) was trying to get back in the hunt after a crash in the pre-session practice session forced his RuSPORT squad to hurriedly prepare the backup car for final qualifying. Wilson got out on course and was just getting his tires up to temperature when the red flag came out for a Mario Dominguez (#19 Sonny’s Bar-B-Q Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) impact with a tire barrier in Turn Six.

The Champ Car Safety Team did its usual quick work in getting the Dominguez car on its way, leaving the field with three minutes to get back up to speed. Wilson used his last lap to improve slightly, but ended up earning the 12th position on tomorrow’s grid after a lap of 50.341 seconds (103.192 mph).

Da Matta ended up in the fourth spot, marking his highest starting position of the season, putting him one spot ahead of Servia, who grids in the top five for the fourth consecutive event. Power held on for the sixth spot to secure the role as the highest starting rookie in Sunday’s race while Bruno Junqueira (#2 Hole In The Wall Camps Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) came on late in the session to start seventh. After not starting in the top 10 through the first six races, Andrew Ranger (#27 Tide/Mi-Jack Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) has now had three straight top-ten grid positions and will start eighth tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s Canary Foundation Grand Prix of San Jose Presented by Taylor Woodrow can be seen live on NBC with coverage beginning at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Fans can also follow all of the action via the Race Director feature on the official website of the Champ Car World Series, www.champcar.ws.

Pos Driver # Team Lap Time Leader

1 S. Bourdais 1 Newman/Haas Racing 48.989
2 A. Allmendinger 7 Forsythe Championship Racing 49.264 0.275
3 C. da Matta 10 RuSPORT 49.659 0.670
4 P. Tracy 3 Forsythe Championship Racing 49.810 0.821
5 O. Servia 6 PKV Racing 49.813 0.824
6 W. Power 5 Team Australia 49.867 0.878
7 B. Junqueira 2 Newman/Haas Racing 49.887 0.898
8 A. Ranger 27 Mi-Jack Conquest Racing 49.962 0.973
9 D. Clarke 14 CTE Racing - HVM 50.161 1.172
10 M. Dominguez 19 Dale Coyne Racing 50.215 1.226
11 N. Philippe 4 CTE Racing - HVM 50.312 1.323
12 J. Wilson 9 RuSPORT 50.341 1.352
13 A. Tagliani 15 Team Australia 50.373 1.384
14 C. Zwolsman 34 Mi-Jack Conquest Racing 50.435 1.446
15 K. Legge 20 PKV Racing 50.457 1.468
16 J. Heylen 11 Dale Coyne Racing 50.838 1.849
17 N. Pastorelli 8 Rocketsports Racing 51.628 2.639

Post-Qualifying Driver Quotes:

Sebastien Bourdais #1 McDonald’s Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “I think it’s been a very good day overall. This morning, the McDonald’s car was a lot better than yesterday. We fixed most of the problems we had in the braking. Bridgestone red tires fixed the rest for qualifying. Very happy with the way things went. As you said, it was a really good lap. But it was a very good first run, I’d say, because it didn’t come like one lap. It was building up slowly and steadily, without making any mistakes. It was a few 10ths every lap. It seems like the more I was running, the more the car was giving me. I actually would have loved to keep on trying because it felt like there was some more in it. It was an awesome feeling. Then the second run kind of felt like you we were in a good window the first time. The second run was just a waste, completely waste, you know, people in the runoff, coming out the pits, spinning. Never really got going. We are fortunate we could put it together at the beginning. Had a great day. Very happy to start that way for tomorrow because obviously the opinion is there’s no better place to be than on the pole. If we get hit, we get hit, but at least we did everything we could to avoid that. A.J.’s third, but Justin’s 12th. Champion-wise, it’s a very good operation, so we’ll try and keep our nose clean tomorrow and have a good result.”

Paul Tracy #3 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “I think today went okay. Obviously we didn’t have the kind of speed that Sebastien had, the 48. We didn’t really have a chance for that. But we did a 48.6 earlier on in the run, in the first run. The second run, 48.4, I think. I had some cars in front of me, some cars behind me. Nobody seemed to want to let anybody go by, so I wasn’t letting anybody by. We ended up with a penalty for holding up another driver. You know, just kind of the end of the qualifying kind of deal out there. We’re pretty happy. Obviously we would have liked to have been on pole, but we didn’t have enough today for that. We were fortunate enough to lock up the front row yesterday. We didn’t have to use our tires too hard today because we were trying to save them for tomorrow.”

A.J. Allmendinger #7 INDECK Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “I think it was a really good day for the whole Forsythe Indeck team. Congratulations to Sebastien. That was an amazing lap. My car on the Bridgestone blacks is really good. After we used the reds yesterday, I did my first run on the blacks and was really quick, was ready to put on the Bridgestone reds, was excited about it. When we put them on, it just seemed like we could never get the tires to temperature. That’s all I had in the car. I’m really pleased. I think we have a great race car for tomorrow’s race. It’s going to be obviously a long, hot race that just lends itself for a lot of mistakes. I think the Forsythe team, we’ve got a great car balance-wise that will allow me not to make a lot of mistakes. We have the best pit crew in the game. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.”

Cristiano da Matta #10 RuSPORT Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “I’m very pleased with fourth place, especially coming from where we were yesterday. We’ve made some improvements on the car, especially in this morning’s practice session, and it looks like we’ve found a good route to pursue. We will try to see if we can make it a little bit better yet again, for the race tomorrow. My engineers and crew have been pushing very hard, and we have definitely improved. We found a couple of small things on the car that have helped make it better suited to the way I like to drive, so I’m happy overall.”

Oriol Servia #6 Gulfstream Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone - “I feel happy because it is the fourth race in a row that we have qualified in the top-five, which is very competitive, it’s very good. But, at the same time when you are that close to the front of the grid you want more. We are .5 from being top-three and I really think those tenths were in the car. I am just mad that I was not able to put it together, but anyway we are top-five again. It is a good place to start in a race where it is very easy to make a mistake. It is a good starting point we just need to keep the car together, have a mistake free race and we should be in good shape tomorrow.”

Will Power #5 Aussie Vineyards Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “By far today was a much better day. We sort of struggled this morning and I probably lacked a little bit of confidence after losing my brakes yesterday, but to come back and be in the top six is really good. I give full credit to Brandon (Fry) my engineer and the whole team for getting the car right and fixing it last night. Everyone is doing a really good job.”

Bruno Junqueira #2 Newman/Haas Racing Ford-Cosworth/Bridgestone/Lola – “Qualifying was okay. We improved the car and I’m happy with that. Maybe I could have improved on the second run and gained a couple of positions. We were able to make the car more consistent which will help us in the race. Starting the race from the inside is better than the outside but we are starting midfield so it’s going to be pretty exciting. Hopefully not too exciting.”

Andrew Ranger #27 MSR Houston Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “I qualified in the top ten again so I’m very pleased with that. The car wasn’t perfect but it was very good. We still have some work to do on it to get it ready for the race. The team did a great job once again, practice this morning did not go as well as I had hoped for but we were able to bounce back in qualifying. For the race tomorrow, the most important thing will be to get passed the first turn, I don’t know what will happen there but I’m sure it will be interesting!”

Dan Clarke #14 CTE Racing-HVM Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “We’d put in a solid lap with our first run but I knew we had to do a bit more to improve on this. On the second run we kept getting caught in traffic and then lost out when the red flag came out on my final lap. The car didn’t feel as good today as it was yesterday, but we definitely had the potential to be better than P9. We can still be very positive, as we know we have a good race pace for tomorrow.”

Mario Dominguez #19 Sonny’s Bar-B-Q Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “I feel good about tomorrow. The car is much better than it was in Edmonton. In the last part of the session we went out on cold tires and I lost it in Turn 6. Even with losing my fastest lap I am very happy with a top ten start. The car should be in good condition for the race tomorrow. I think if we have a smart race with no mistakes we can have at least a top eight finish.”

Nelson Philippe #4 CTE Racing-HVM Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone - “It’s very unfortunate as to what happened to us today. We lost the gearbox on our first set of tires and first flying lap and weren’t able to go back out. I am disappointed because I know that I had a package good enough to be on the first two rows. We have a difficult task ahead of us for tomorrow but I know we can come back fast and achieve a top five finish. I am upbeat and look forward to tomorrow as it is a long race and anything can happen.”

Justin Wilson #9 CDW Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “The CDW crew did a good job getting the spare car ready for qualifying after I made a mistake at the end of warm-up and put in into the tires. It’s times like this when they really step up to the plate, and they did that again today. It was impressive. I’m just disappointed that I made a mistake and damaged the car. It cost us quite a bit in track position, which is one thing we didn’t want to do, but we just need to go and make the best of a bad job now.”

Alex Tagliani #15 Aussie Vineyards Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “In pre-qualifying our car was going really good, with the tires we were going to be able to run front. We were on a 48.9 lap and just ran wide in turn six, tapped the tire and got sucked into the tires. Unfortunately it kept us out of qualifying. We have to start from the back and hopefully get to the front.”

Charles Zwolsman #34 Mi-Jack Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “We made some changes after the first run, we were just starting to get the laps going and I locked the brakes up going into turn 6 and I tried to spin it around but due to the tire temperature the motor just stalled when I spun it around so that left me with only one flying lap after that, but I couldn’t improve. During the race we have to move up because our qualifying position doesn’t show our true speed.”

Nicky Pastorelli #8 Curacao/Rocketsports Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone - “I am pretty frustrated. The #8 Curacao/Rocketsports car is improving each time we go out for a session, but it obviously was not enough to give us a good qualifying spot for tomorrow. So we are not happy how things went today, but we were able to have a good clean day. I will sit down with my engineers tonight and we will work together to try to get a better car for the race tomorrow, then we will see how things go tomorrow afternoon and hope for a good finish.”

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