Bomarito takes provisional Atlantic pole

American Jonathan Bomarito of Monterey, CA put his Miracle Sealants/PR-1 Motorsports racer on the provisional pole for Sunday’s 11th round of the Cooper Tires presents the Champ Car Atlantic Championship powered by Mazda today at the Grand Prix of San Jose. Bomarito’s lap time 56.018 seconds was set in the waning moments of the first of two qualifying sessions and was locked up when the red flag came out with 2 minutes remaining to end the session.

Bomarito sat atop the time sheets for most of the session having set the standard in the early going only to slip back to 3rd place temporarily with 8 minutes remaining. Shortly thereafter, Bomarito got a clear run to better the fastest time to that point and felt that there was more speed to come had the session not ended prematurely.

Bomarito earns one championship point as a result of winning the provisional pole and is guaranteed to start Sunday’s race from the front row.

"It feels great to have the provisional pole," said Bomarito. "It’s been a long time coming and hopefully tomorrow we can repeat and keep the pole. Our street course package is really strong and the car was quick right from the start today so I’m pretty confident that we can put it together once more. Tonight, we’ll be looking at every little detail to get that last ounce of performance because it is a very competitive field and being on the front row here in San Jose is a real advantage."

Results

Pos Driver Time Behind
1 Jonathan Bomarito 56.018 0.000
2 Franck Perera 56.056 0.038
3 Raphael Matos 56.095 0.077
4 James Hinchcliffe 56.179 0.161
5 John Edwards 56.258 0.240
6 Simona De Silvestro 56.262 0.244
7 Robert Wickens 56.306 0.288
8 David Garza 56.314 0.296
9 Ryan Lewis 56.483 0.465
10 Ronnie Bremer 56.557 0.539
11 Adrian Carrio 56.601 0.583
12 Alan Sciuto 56.629 0.611
13 Junior Strous 56.927 0.909
14 Matt Lee 56.768 0.750
15 Steve Ott 56.845 0.827
16 Tom Sutherland 56.633 0.615
17 Carl Skerlong 56.952 0.934
18 Brian Thienes 57.018 1.000
19 Justin Sofio 57.034 1.016
20 Giacomo Ricci 57.128 1.110
21 Frankie Muniz 57.311 1.293
22 Mike Forest 57.363 1.345
23 Richard Heistand 57.741 1.723
24 Natacha Gachnang 58.598 2.580
25 J.R. Hildebrand 1:00.925 4.907