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Gommendy takes provisional pole

Tristan Gommendy was unbeatable in first qualifying at Mont Tremblant circuit this afternoon, guaranteeing his PKV Racing entry a place on the front row

The Frenchman guided his car around the 2.621-mile circuit in 1:16.776, at an average speed of 122.898mph, to hold off a last-ditch attempt by Sebastien Bourdais.

The Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing driver wound up 0.007 seconds short after making a mistake on his final lap.

"We put black [hard compound] tyres on at the beginning of the session, and I got a good lap, but the car was not very stable," said Gommendy.

"So my engineer asked me what I wanted, and I said 'more grip'. But the red [softer] tyres weren't any quicker and changed the balance of the car."

Bourdais was unhappy with Dan Clarke of Team Minardi USA, who was apparently dragging dirt on to the track up ahead of him after small off-track excursions. Bourdais remained on black tyres throughout the session.

Will Power was third for Team Australia, with Justin Wilson of RSPORTS, Robert Doornbos (Minardi USA), Neel Jani (PKV), and Power's teammate Simon Pagenaud filling the next four slots.

Surprisingly, given that this is one of Champ Car's longer tracks, the top seven were covered by just 0.17 seconds.

Paul Tracy and Oriol Servia were left languishing in 11th and 14th, leaving Conquest Racing's Jan Heylen to take 12th, despite this being his first visit to the track and despite having an off at the final hairpin in the 10 minutes of pre-qualifying.

Pacific Coast Motorsports' Ryan Dalziel and Alex Figge ended in 13th and 15th positions respectively, within 1.2 and 1.3 seconds of Gommendy's top lap.

Pos  Driver               Team                       Time
 1.  Tristan Gommendy     PKV                        1:16.776
 2.  Sebastien Bourdais   Newman/Haas/Lanigan        1:16.783 + 0.007
 3.  Will Power           Team Australia             1:16.841 + 0.065
 4.  Justin Wilson        RSPORTS                    1:16.843 + 0.067
 5.  Robert Doornbos      Minardi Team USA           1:16.850 + 0.074
 6.  Neel Jani            PKV                        1:16.931 + 0.155
 7.  Simon Pagenaud       Team Australia             1:16.944 + 0.168
 8.  Alex Tagliani        RSPORTS                    1:17.256 + 0.480
 9.  Graham Rahal         Newman/Haas/Lanigan        1:17.475 + 0.699
10.  Dan Clarke           Minardi Team USA           1:17.481 + 0.705
11.  Paul Tracy           Forsythe Championship      1:17.629 + 0.853
12.  Jan Heylen           Conquest                   1:17.832 + 1.056
13.  Ryan Dalziel         Pacific Coast Motorsports  1:17.965 + 1.189
14.  Oriol Servia         Forsythe Championship      1:18.012 + 1.236
15.  Alex Figge           Pacific Coast Motorsports  1:18.067 + 1.291
16.  Bruno Junqueira      Dale Coyne                 1:18.127 + 1.351
17.  Katherine Legge      Dale Coyne                 1:18.989 + 2.213

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