A.J. Allmendinger's scintillating form at the wheel of his new Forsythe Racing Lola Ford continued unabated in qualifying for the Cleveland Grand Prix, after the American secured pole position and in the process smashed an eight-year-old track record.
After claiming a front row start on his debut with the team at Portland and then going on to claim victory, Allmendinger was able to break Jimmy Vasser's record from 1998 to claim his first pole position of the year and only the second pole position of his career.
His time of 56.283secs was enough to dislodge overnight pole sitter
Sebastien Bourdais, although the Frenchman did initially take the fight to the youngster but had his best time, one tenth off Allmendinger, disallowed when he exceeded his allotted 15 qualifying laps.
However, his second best lap was enough to edge out Justin Wilson by two hundredths of a second, the RuSport driver finding some extra speed to jump a place to third, despite a spin mid-session.
He will be joined on the second row by Oriol Servia, who secured his and PKV's best starting position of the year in fourth place, just ahead of Paul Tracy and Nelson Philipe, the Frenchman matching his career best starting position of the previous round in sixth place.
Just as he was in provisional qualifying, Will Power was the highest placed Raybestos rookie in ninth place, one position behind his Team Australia team-mate Alex Tagliani, while current rookie leader Dan Clarke saw a massive improvement overnight to jump from 16th to 11th, with a time some 1.5secs quicker than he managed in provisional qualifying.
His main rival in the championship Katherine Legge meanwhile slipped a place from provisional qualifying and as a result with start in 14th
