BUSCH SERIES Junqueira captures provisional pole

He is assured of being one of two cars on the front row.
MONTEREY, Calif. (AP) -- Paul Tracy and Patrick Carpentier wish there had been one less qualifying lap. Bruno Junqueira is just fine with where the number ended up.
Junqueira won his first provisional CART pole this season, twisting around the Laguna Seca road course at 115.031 mph Friday in qualifying for today's Grand Prix of Monterey.
Carpentier was second at 114.583, followed by Tracy at 114.539.
"The car wasn't very good in the first outing," Junqueira said. "I hit a little bit of traffic. Then for the second set of tires, we did a good change ... and I got the good lap."
Junqueira is assured of being one of two cars on the front row, although a faster driver Saturday could take the pole.
Tracy was leading the other two drivers as they entered their last -- and fastest -- lap.
"I should have just slowed down and held them up," he said.
"I thought you were going to do that," Junqueira replied.
Moving up
The championship point Junqueira received for the provisional pole ties him with Tracy in the series standings at 67, 10 behind Michel Jourdain, who qualified seventh.
Tracy won the first three Champ Car races of the season, but has picked up just three points in the last three.
Carpentier, fifth in the standings, qualified fifth, behind Junqueira's Newman-Haas teammate, Sebastien Bourdais.
"The car was very good," Carpentier said. "Like Paul said, wish it would have been just one lap shorter, but it was good. We need to improve it a little bit."
Junqueira said being assured of a front-row start would give his team more of an opportunity to concentrate Saturday on its race setup.
"Qualifying way up at a track like this is very important," he said. "I think to race here is going to be really difficult,"
The road course snakes for 2.238 miles and 11 turns -- including the corkscrew's 50-foot drop -- through the rolling hills of the Monterey Peninsula.
Junqueira's pace was well short of the qualifying record of 118.969, set in 2000 by Helio Castroneves.