de Ferran

The reigning FedEx Series champion turned a fast lap of 92.513 mph on a cool, overcast Saturday afternoon to easily earn his fourth pole of the season and the 15th of his Champ car career.

More important, the single point awarded for the pole moved de Ferran within five of Brack heading into Sunday's race on the 1.527-mile, 10-turn downtown street circuit.

"Every point is important," de Ferran said. "But the most important thing right now is focusing on the race, not the points."

Rookie Bruno Junqueira, who crashed in the morning practice and had to move to his backup car, came up with a lap of 91.707 moments from the end of the qualifying session and bumped Brack to the second row.

Brack made one last big effort to move back to the front row, but slid into a runoff area four turns from the end of the lap.

"You try hard," said Brack, whose earlier lap of 91.701 still put him close behind de Ferran and ahead of several other title contenders.

"I had the early one in the bank and I passed the start-finish line with 10 seconds to go, so I made a do-or-die lap," he said."But the tires go off and you don't have that extra little bit of grip any more. It probably wouldn't have been fast enough, anyway, but you have to try."

Still he was pretty happy with the showing.

"Not bad for an oval specialist," Brack said, laughing. The longtime road racer from Sweden owns a series-leading four victories this season -- all on oval tracks. "It would have been nice to start on the front row, but I think in a race situation we're as good as anybody."

Helio Castroneves, de Ferran's Marlboro Team Penske teammate and fourth in the standings -- 24 points behind Brack -- was fourth at 91.524, followed by Alex Tagliani at 91.329, Dario Franchitti at 90.964 and rookie Scott Dixon at 90.944.

Michael Andretti, two points ahead of Castroneves in third, spun during qualifying and wound up 12th at 90.675.

"When I spun, it definitely cost us," the former series champion said. "I think we had a much better car today, probably top six, but I just didn't have much time left when we got back on the track, so I was lucky to get what I got out of the session."

Castroneves was happy to be within sight of the leaders going into the 100-lap event.

"I thought we were right there," he said. "Unfortunately, I got caught in traffic and wasn't able to get in a final fast lap at the end. We'll be in good shape for the race."

There are a maximum of 87 points remaining to be won over the last four races. With 21 points up for grabs Sunday -- 20 for the race winner and one for leading the most laps -- this race could be pivotal.