In all, the first nine cars were separated by just 0.853 seconds. It was the tightest qualifying session ever seen in the Series.
"It is very good competition. It is what we always asked for, and now we have it," Bernhard said. "I have never seen so many cars driving as fast as they can on the edge."
Marco Werner was first in LMP1 for Audi Sport North America but sixth overall in the Audi R10 TDI he will drive with Lucas Luhr. Werner's lap of 1m 31.590s (119.803 mph) was enough for his ninth Series pole and put him a scant 0.207 seconds ahead of Frank Biela in the second diesel-powered Audi that also will be driven by Emanuele Pirro.
The Audis have been searching for its sweet spot throughout the weekend. At times, Werner almost sounded perplexed as the team tried a number of different solutions to find the right balance of straightline speed and handling in the corners.
"This weekend is very strange," he said. "We have a lot more downforce than we've had before this year, which is not so good for us. I suggested my idea that we're not going forward, let's go back and try to take some downforce off. But during the qualifying run I went out for the first time with the new setup and it was hard to drive. I could feel the tyres being used up and knew what I had done was going to be the best time I had."
Luhr and Werner enter Miller Motorsports Park having won the last two overall races. And despite their overall position, all is not lost for Sunday's race. The duo started sixth overall at Long Beach and still managed to post an impressive victory.
"This track is not really built for us," Werner said. "It is a very fast track but you change directions so many times that it is hard for us with all of the weight we have. If you see, the four-tenths to pole position is not a very big gap but we are so far back. I'm hoping for a good start tomorrow and hopefully a really good race."
Jon Field qualified Intersport Racing's E85-powered Lola-AER third in P1 and 11th overall.
Olivier Beretta put Corvette Racing's No. 4 Corvette C6.R on the GT1 pole position for the second time this season. Beretta's time of 1m 43.869s (105.641 mph) was just 0.175 seconds ahead of Johnny O'Connell in the sister Corvette. Beretta took his second pole of the season after qualifying out front in class at St. Petersburg.
