SAN JOSE (July 28, 2006) – Paul Tracy (#3 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) was the first car on track at the beginning of first-round qualifying for this weekend’s Canary Foundation Grand Prix of San Jose, but he saved his best for last in taking the top spot in Friday’s qualification session in front of a first-day crowd of 40,127.

Tracy turned a best lap of 50.156 seconds (103.573 mph) on his 13thtrip around the revamped 1.443-mile San Jose street course to lead the first qualifying session, besting series points leader Sebastien Bourdais (#1 McDonald’s Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) by a scant .004 seconds. Tracy scored a championship point for leading the day’s festivities and earned a front-row starting spot for Sunday’s race, marking his back-to-back front-row starting spots of the year. The 2003 series champion was the first car on course at the start of the 35-minute session, taking advantage of a clear track to set a good time. He set a best time of 50.639 seconds on his first set of Bridgestone Potenzas and then got to Pit Lane just in time to see the red flag come out for Nicky Pastorelli (#8 Rocketsports Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) and his stricken car. Tracy watched the next few minutes from the relative tranquility of his pit stall as Bourdais led a large group of cars out for their first qualifying stints. The reconfigured track took a little longer than normal to give up its speed, but by the time Bourdais and his group had six laps under their belts, Tracy had slid back to fifth while Bourdais jumped to the top spot ahead of Californian home-town favorite A.J. Allmendinger (#7 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone).

Bourdais led Allmendinger by .007 seconds with Justin Wilson (#9 CDW Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone), Cristiano da Matta (#10 RuSPORT Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) and Oriol Servia (#6 Bell Micro Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) following close behind, when Allmendinger spun going into the runoff in Turn Seven. Unable to turn around in the runoff, Allmendinger had to be retrieved by the tow truck, causing a red flag. The red flag meant that Allmendinger would lose his fastest lap of the session, but it didn’t appear to be too severe of a penalty at the time, as his second-best lap was still good enough for second place. The Californian strapped on a set of alternate Bridgestone Potenzas as soon as he got back to Pit Lane for the last six minutes of the session, now shooting at the time of 50.160 seconds (103.565 mph) that Bourdais had hung on the field. But while Allmendinger chased Bourdais, his Forsythe Championship Racing teammate Tracy came back on course and vaulted to the top with his eventual polewinning lap. Allmendinger managed to post one lap that was better than Tracy’s but with that serving as his penalty lap, the young American would end up third with an official time of 50.246 seconds (103.387 mph).

Servia appeared destined for the fourth spot on the first-day grid, but he lost two spots in the blink of an eye as feast-or-famine rookie Dan Clarke (#14 CTE Racing – HVM Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) leapfrogged into fourth with a time of 50.278 seconds (103.322 mph), marking his best qualifying result in any session this year. Meanwhile Team Australia’s Alex Tagliani (#15 Aussie Vineyards Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) carded a time of 50.373 seconds (103.127 mph) to vault into the top five. Servia settled for sixth on the day while Friday-practice leader Nelson Philippe (#4 CTE Racing – HVM Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) came in late in the session to score the seventh-best time. Toronto winner Wilson was eighth in the first round with Bruno Junqueira (#2 Hole In The Wall Camps Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) and da Matta rounding out the top 10.

The final grid will be set with Saturday’s second-round qualifying which gets underway at 2 p.m. local time. Fans can 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 P. Tracy 3 Forsythe Championship Racing 50.156
2 S. Bourdais 1 Newman/Haas Racing 50.160 0.004
3 A. Allmendinger 7 Forsythe Championship Racing 50.246 0.090
4 O. Servia 6 PKV Racing 50.248 0.092
5 D. Clarke 14 CTE Racing - HVM 50.278 0.122
6 A. Tagliani 15 Team Australia 50.373 0.217
7 N. Philippe 4 CTE Racing - HVM 50.440 0.284
8 J. Wilson 9 RuSPORT 50.504 0.348
9 B. Junqueira 2 Newman/Haas Racing 50.587 0.431
10 C. da Matta 10 RuSPORT 50.734 0.578
11 M. Dominguez 19 Dale Coyne Racing 50.861 0.705
12 A. Ranger 27 Mi-Jack Conquest Racing 50.925 0.769
13 C. Zwolsman 34 Mi-Jack Conquest Racing 51.004 0.848
14 K. Legge 20 PKV Racing 51.329 1.173
15 J. Heylen 11 Dale Coyne Racing 51.591 1.435
16 N. Pastorelli 8 Rocketsports Racing 52.344 2.188
17 W. Power 5 Team Australia 0.00 0.00

Post-Provisional Qualifying Driver Quotes:

Paul Tracy #3 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “The track is vastly improved over last season, and should provide a great race this weekend and we thank Champ Car for getting things taken care of. We give Chris Kneifel a lot of grief when things are wrong, but he really worked hard to make sure this was right and I want to recognize him for that.”

Sebastien Bourdais #1 McDonald’s Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “I was 4/1000ths of a second too slow today. I screwed up a couple of times. The McDonald’s car is pretty good but I kept locking up the brakes. It was difficult to predict what would happen when I went over the different surfaces and I made a mistake a couple of times but that was a couple of times too many. The track is smoother but it’s now more uneven which is a challenge — at least for us.”

A.J. Allmendinger #7 INDECK Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “I got into the Turn Seven runoff and i was told that I would have enough room to turn around, but I got to a chain-link fence and could not, so we had to get a tow and cause a red flag. We still put up a god time even though we lost it because of the flag, so I feel pretty good about tomorrow.”

Dan Clarke #14 CTE Racing-HVM Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “It feels good to have had such a strong run in qualifying today – top rookie and a great team! This morning we knew we had a good car, although we were only 13th fastest, but I made a mistake, when I was three-tenths up on my final hot lap. We knew we could go quicker, but I just had to go out there and do it. When the team told me it was my last qualifying lap and that I needed to make it count, I went for it and we were half a second quicker. I think there’s still more in the car and in me, so we’ll be trying to go quicker again tomorrow.”

Alex Tagliani #15 Aussie Vineyards Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “Going out of the pits, I was pushing hard as usual when I leave the pits to get used to what I will be doing in the race. I went to hit the brakes going into turn one, and they just went to the floor. I went straight in pretty hard and did enough damage to miss out in qualifying. It’s the second weekend in a row where we have sat out of qualifying once. It’s a pity, but I look forward to tomorrow because I felt pretty comfortable around the track. At least Alex qualified well and we can get a good look at his data and get going well for tomorrow.”

Oriol Servia #6 Gulfstream Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone - “Another qualifying session in the top-five for the Gulfstream – PKV Racing team, just .1 off pole position and we did that on the black tires which are a little slower than the alternate red tires. We have a good starting point. We just have to keep working and getting closer to the front…keep our heads down…keep doing what we are doing and we are going to be satisfied with the result by the end of the weekend. It is like we are going to a new race. The track this year has nothing to do with last year. It is so much better. I saw Don Listwin (race owner) yesterday and told him I didn’t see how it was going to be that much better. I thought it would be the same as last year. Now I have to completely take back everything I said. The work the San Jose Grand Prix has done is great. The track is so smooth and they really have done a great job. It is a proper race track, the drivers are going to have fun racing on it and the fans are going to have a lot of fun watching us race. It is a proper race track and I think we are going to be coming back to San Jose for many years.”

Nelson Philippe #4 CTE Racing-HVM Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone - “I am really disappointed at my qualifying results this afternoon. I will be better tomorrow!”

Justin Wilson #9 CDW Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “I’m a little bit disappointed with today. The car didn’t feel too bad, but we ended up in eighth position. So, we’ve got a little bit of work to do to give ourselves an opportunity on Sunday. We work on things tonight and get it right tomorrow. On a track like this, it’s critical to brake well, power down and turn in well in the corners. All of the corners are very similar, so if you fix the problem in one corner, you’ll fix it in all of them and pick up quite a bit of time. Hopefully, it’s just a couple of clicks away and we’ll be there.”

Bruno Junqueira #2 Newman/Haas Racing Ford-Cosworth/Bridgestone/Lola – “The position is not that good but the time is not so bad. Everyone is pretty close time-wise. I think we can improve when I know the track better.”

Cristiano da Matta #10 RuSPORT Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “It’s a disappointing qualifying position, and I’m also disappointed in the progress we’ve made so far this weekend. We haven’t been able to address any of the issues we’ve found in the car so far, but we’re not going to give up. We’ll keep working on it, and hopefully, tomorrow we’ll be better.”

Andrew Ranger #27 MSR Houston Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “It was a little difficult today. This morning and again during qualifying we had problems finding the right balance on the car and that cost us some time. With the field so close together it could have made a big difference but we will study the data tonight and see what we can do tomorrow. (About the track) It is much better than last year, there are still a few bumps, but it’s a street course so there is suppose to be some!”

Charles Zwolsman #34 Mi-Jack Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “P13 is no where close to where we were this morning, when we were looking quite good. During qualifying I didn’t get a good lap together with all the red flags and some guys going slow on the track and also a bit of me. I suppose I could have gone about three tenths quicker but still it is not good enough, it would only have put me in tenth, so we need to find some extra speed. (About the track) It is a big improvement, I’m very impressed with the people who did the work on the track it is very smooth.”

Katherine Legge #20 Bell Micro Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone - “Obviously, qualifying did not go the way the Bell Micro – PKV Racing team wanted. I had a good first stint, but on the second stint we got caught with a red flag. Overall, I think the car is good and Oriol (teammate Oriol Servia) had a good qualifying session, so we know we are headed in the right direction with the setup. The track is also vastly improved. The San Jose Grand Prix officials have done a fantastic job with the circuit. The Bell Micro – PKV Racing just needs to go out tomorrow and have a good qualifying session.”

Will Power #5 Aussie Vineyards Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone – “The team did a really good job today. There are a lot changes we need to do to the car to improve. The track is much better and they did a fantastic job, which is great because we are not having the issues that we had last year. Tonight we just need to look over data and qualify good tomorrow.”

Nicky Pastorelli #8 Curacao/Rocketsports Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone - “The track is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was not too hard to learn and did not feel as bumpy as everyone made it sound from last year. So, despite not knowing how it was last year, the improvements that made have helped. It was unfortunate that I went off in qualifying early on, so we did not get to have a good run this afternoon. I think that we are moving in the right direction. We have a little issue with the #8 Curacao/Rocketsports car when I am going over the bumps, but it is something that we will be able to sort out for tomorrow. I think we will be good to go tomorrow.”

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