GERMAN 500 Bourdais captures another pole

The French rookie won his third pole in five races.
KLETTWITZ, Germany (AP) -- Sebastien Bourdais thought he would be able to start quickly in the CART series. But this is better than he expected.
The 24-year-old French rookie won the pole Saturday for the German 500, his third in five races. Bourdais goes for his second straight victory in today's race after winning Monday at Brands Hatch in England.
After four road courses, the European faces his first American-style oval race at the EuroSpeedway. Bourdais clocked a track-record 37 seconds on the 2.023-mile course at an average speed of 196.832 mph.
"I was not expecting to be on a pace like this," said Bourdais, who had 11/2 days of practice on the oval in Phoenix before Saturday.
"I was expecting to be up there this season, but not this much. I have no explanation other than I work hard and I've worked hard in the past and now I'm getting the fruits of my work."
Edged Junqueira
Bourdais again edged Newman-Haas teammate Bruno Junqueira, who clocked 37.211. They were followed by Mexico's Michel Jourdain (37.274) of Team Rahal and Brazilian Mario Haberfeld (37.392) of Mi-Jack Conquest.
The last rookie to win three poles was Juan Pablo Montoya in 1999 -- and he needed the whole season to do it.
Meanwhile, points leader Paul Tracy had a terrible day.
After three straight wins to open the season, he went out with mechanical problems in England. On Saturday, he was 16th of 19.
Tracy leads the season standings with 65 points followed by Junqueira (54), Jourdain (42) and Adrian Fernandez (29). Patrick Carpentier and Bourdais have 28.
Tracy clocked 38.244 and complained of "too much down-force."
"This is not very good," Tracy said. "I was running flat out all the way around. I did not even have to steer."
Carpentier was even worse, qualifying 17th.
Zanardi in ceremony
Two-time CART champion Alex Zanardi, who had his legs amputated above the knee in a gruesome crash here 20 months ago, will drive 13 "ceremonial laps" today to complete the Sept. 15, 2001 race.
Zanardi ran 10 test laps Friday in a modified Mi-Jack Conquest Racing car with a best lap of 192.901 mph. The clutch and throttle are controlled by hand. The brakes are handled by Zanardi's artificial right leg fitted to a special pedal.