Power on Surfers provisional pole

The Australian rookie hammered round the 2.795-mile course in 1:31.403 to eclipse Newman/Haas duo Sebastien Bourdais and Bruno Junqueira - and guarantee a huge media splash in tomorrow's papers in race-crazed Queensland.

The Team Australia driver said: "It feels great, obviously, but I was slightly surprised at how quick we were. On black (harder-compound) tyres, we were reasonable. Then we went out on reds with 12minutes, and pushed really hard.

"This is the first of the Champ Car tracks this year that I've race on before, so that helped. And I think there's more to come. I was actually on a quicker run when the red flag came out."

That red flag was caused by AJ Allmendinger crashing his Forsythe Championship Racing entry heavily, as he attempted to respond to Power's pole. For causing a red, AJ had his best time deleted, and dropped to fifth, leaving second and third to Bourdais and Junqueira - each of whom were lucky to get away with incidents.

Bourdais was on a quick run when he made an adjustment in the cockpit that caused the rear wheels to lock up which put him off course, and forced him to allow following cars through. They then impeded him when he tried to put another lap together.

Junqueira meanwhile set his quickest time on blacks. During a fine flying lap on reds, he tagged the same tyres that Paul Tracy did this morning, and bent his steering.

He remarked: "The lap was going so good that when I looked down at the steering wheel and saw something was wrong, I said "Well it had just better stick, because this lap is too good to just throw away."

"But then the red flag came out, and I guess I was slightly relieved that I didn't have to complete the last four corners with bent steering."

Paul Tracy's spare car - following his shunt this morning - didn't even hit the track in qualifying, when a major fuel leak was discovered. He was joined on the sidelines by both RuSPORT drivers and Katherine Legge.

Rookie Ryan Briscoe crashed his car into the wall at Turn 2 in the 15-minute pre-qualifying session, and it was beyond immediate repair.

Justin Wilson struck the pile of tyres at the fast chicane (yes, the same ones that accounted for Junqueira's steering) and had the steering wheel wrenched through his hands, spraining his right wrist. He was advised by Champ Car medical team to sit out the session and pack his hand in ice.

The Cosworth engine in Legge's PKV Racing car refused to start. Like Tracy, Wilson and Briscoe, she will be praying that the rain forecast for tomorrow fails to strike. The same applies to Alex Tagliani who never got a clear lap on red tyres.

Antonio Pizzonia was a commendable 10th fastest, commendably close (within half a second) to Mario Dominguez at this most difficult and daunting of circuits.

Friday qualifying times:

Pos  Driver              Team                Time
 1.  Will Power          Team Australia      1:31.403
 2.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas         1:31.774  + 0.371
 3.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman/Haas         1:32.265  + 0.862
 4.  Oriol Servia        PKV                 1:32.371  + 0.968
 5.  AJ Allmendinger     Forsythe            1:32.536  + 1.133
 6.  Nelson Philippe     CTE - HVM           1:32.783  + 1.380
 7.  Dan Clarke          CTE - HVM           1:32.821  + 1.418
 8.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia      1:32.933  + 1.530
 9.  Mario Dominguez     Rocketsports        1:33.267  + 1.864
10.  Antonio Pizzonia    Rocketsports        1:33.736  + 2.333
11.  Andrew Ranger       Mi-Jack Conquest    1:34.155  + 2.752
12.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne          1:34.593  + 3.190
13.  Charles Zwolsman    Mi-Jack Conquest    1:35.017  + 3.614
14.  Andreas Wirth       Dale Coyne          1:37.300  + 5.897
15.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe            no time
16.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT             no time
17.  Ryan Briscoe        RuSPORT             no time
18.  Katherine Legge     PKV                 no time