Junqueira is fastest in Mexico

Sebastien Bourdais needs just a ninth-place finish to win the championship.
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Bruno Junqueira used new springs and soft tires Friday to run the fastest lap on the first day of qualifying for the Champ Car finale, shaving a point off Sebastien Bourdais' championship lead.
Junqueira's fastest lap was 114.539 mph, compared to 114.204 mph for his Newman/Haas teammate.
The point earned by the Brazilian driver raised his total to 314 -- 21 behind Bourdais -- and guaranteed him a front-row start for Sunday's Telmex-Tecate Grand Prix.
Front would be nice
Bourdais, last year's rookie of the year, still needs just a ninth-place finish to win the championship. The Frenchman said earlier in the week he'd like to go to the front early to avoid dangerous battling in the pack.
He stuck to regular tires on the first day of qualifying to conserve the faster alternates for today. Even so, he might have claimed the top spot Friday if he had not spun off the course on the last turn.
"I knew it was going to take a big attack" to beat Junqueira's time, Bourdais said. "Unfortunately, it didn't go through the last turn."
Mexico City is one of five tracks on the circuit this year where drivers are given two different compounds of tires and have to use both variants in the race, adding to strategy.
Bourdais said that for today's qualifying, he'll go with softer tires he estimates will cut his time by almost a second a lap. His lap Friday on the 2.786-mile road course was 1:27.822 seconds, just three-tenths of a second slower than that of Junqueira's 1:27.565.
Junqueira was slightly more conservative, saying the softer tires were at least a half-second faster.
Traction reaction
"They gave a lot of grip," Junqueira said. "It's very fun to drive. Maybe next year we're going to ask for more of those."
The alternative tires were introduced at the season opener in Long Beach, Calif., and were used earlier in races in Portland, Ore.; Monterey, Calif., and Montreal.
Rookie A.J. Allmendinger was third in the first qualifying session at 114.157. The 23-year-old American is seventh in the series standings with the new RuSport team.
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