Villeneuve breezes in.

NASCAR's decision to allow Jacques Villeneuve to make his Nextel Cup debut at the fearsome 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway may not have sat too well with some of the drivers in the Chase for the Championship but none can deny his outstanding talent after the Canadian driver qualified sixth fastest for Sunday's UAW-Ford 500.

Aided somewhat by the vagaries of the current Nextel Cup qualifying system and the fact that many of the title contenders almost deliberately chose to start at the rear of the 43 car field for Sunday's 188-lap race Villeneuve's performance in the #27 (the number made famous by his late father Gilles) Bill Davis Racing Toyota has a context to be put in but even so, the driver who will contend for next year's Raybestos Rookie of the Year title with BDR has put the rest of the Cup Series garage on notice.

In a qualifying session where the fastest eleven drivers all drove for teams not currently in the top 35 in points Villeneuve rolled out 21st in line of the 51 teams in attendance knowing that he had to be among the fastest eight of the 16 'go or go home' teams if he was to successfully qualify on his NASCAR debut.

With just two flat out laps to get the job done the 1995 Indianapolis 500 winner and 1997 Formula One World Champion rattled off a lap of 50.878secs on his second flying lap, less than three tenths slower than polesitter Michael Waltrip and easily good enough to make the field.

At the time of his lap Villeneuve actually sat on the front row of the grid and even though by the end of the session he had been pushed back to sixth it was still way beyond expectations.

However with just two NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races on his NASCAR resume including one shortly after qualifying on Saturday at Talladega that resulted in a late race accident, all eyes will be on Villeneuve at the start of Sunday's race, the fourth in the ten race championship play-off as just one small mistake from the Canadian could have huge implications on the overall championship picture.