Newman Haas driver Sebastien Bourdais claimed pole position for this weekend’s Champ Car race in Houston, only to lose his fastest lap as punishment for blocking Team Australia’s Will Power, demoting him to second on the grid behind Power. Justin Wilson starts third for RSports, with PKV’s rookie Neel Jani fourth ahead of Oriol Servia and Graham Rahal.

GP2 refugees Adam Carroll and Alexandre Prémat got their DTM season off to a ‘challenging’ start, qualifying 17th and 18th respectively at Hockenheim yesterday behind 2005 GP2 driver Mathias Lauda. Bruno Spengler took pole.