Servia not happy with Friday form.

Patrick Racing's Oriol Servia will maintain his season-long streak of qualifying inside the top ten if he maintains his overnight position in final qualifying for Sunday's Centrix Financial Grand Prix of Denver although the Spanish born driver was far from happy with his Friday performance in the 'Mile High City.'

In CART's single-car qualifying format, Servia set a quick lap of 62.303 seconds around the tricky 1.647-mile temporary street circuit aboard the #20 Visteon/Patrick Lola-Ford, eight tenths slower than provisional polesitter Bruno Junqueira.

Patrick Racing's Oriol Servia will maintain his season-long streak of qualifying inside the top ten if he maintains his overnight position in final qualifying for Sunday's Centrix Financial Grand Prix of Denver although the Spanish born driver was far from happy with his Friday performance in the 'Mile High City.'

In CART's single-car qualifying format, Servia set a quick lap of 62.303 seconds around the tricky 1.647-mile temporary street circuit aboard the #20 Visteon/Patrick Lola-Ford, eight tenths slower than provisional polesitter Bruno Junqueira.

With rain predicted for much of the upcoming weekend, Pat Patrick's team spent much of Friday morning's first practice session scrubbing rain tires in addition to working on the car's set-up. Toward the end of the session, Servia went out on slick, dry tires and turned a quick lap of 63.367 seconds placing him fifth on the individual practice report.

During the second morning practice the team continued to develop the set-up, but toward the middle of the session, Servia spun causing a red flag. After serving and eight-minute penalty for causing the delay, Servia was back on track. By the end of the session he had improved his time from the morning session turning a fast lap of 62.534 seconds. The quick time put him 10th on both the individual and combined practice report.

Provisional qualifying took an unusual form. Because the Denver temporary street circuit is so short CART decided, for the second time this season, to go with single car qualifying. The series used the same format earlier this year at the 1.2-mile Brands Hatch circuit because the shorter tracks do not lend themselves to a fair and competitive qualifying session.

Qualifying consisted of three laps with the best of the three determining the provisional grid. The qualifying lineup was based on the reverse order of the combined practice report, so Servia ran his qualifying laps 10th of the 19 drivers.

"I not very happy with the Visteon/Patrick Racing Team's qualifying effort today," Servia said. "The single car qualifying made it difficult and I don't think we got the most out of the car. It is tough to qualify here with only three laps because the track is so short. The tires are cold to start and when you brake going into the corner you don't know if they are up to temperature. That means you are guessing and risking a lot," he explained.

"The track is definitely improved from last year. The bumps are not as bad, but it is very slippery and we have a lot less downforce because of the altitude. It makes it difficult to get the maximum out of the car, but it is the same for everybody, so you just have to do your best," Servia noted. "I think the Visteon/Patrick Racing Team can improve the car a lot for tomorrow and hopefully, it won't rain," he concluded.

Servia has been particularly strong in qualifying this season. He has started in the top-10 in a CART career high 14 consecutive races and is the only driver to have qualified in the top-10 in every race this season. The 29-year-old native of Spain has also earned his CART career highest qualifying position starting second last weekend in Montreal.

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