Long Beach: PCM Saturday qualifying session notes

Pacific Coast Motorsports Saturday qualifying notes from Long Beach.

- Run in the late afternoon, final qualifying for Sunday's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach got underway in sunny and hot conditions.

- On his opening lap, Pacific Coast Motorsports driver Alex Figge posted the fifth fastest lap.

- Attacking the course on cold tires, Figge was third on his third lap and second on his fourth lap.

- Early in the session, Figge pitted, putting on fresh tires.

- While in the pits Figge dropped back to sixth.

- In the four laps it took for the tires to get to optimal race temperatures, Figge fell back to seventh.

- With 10 minutes remaining in the session, Figge posted his first fast lap on fresh tires, moving into fourth with a time of 1:17.4.

- For the next few laps, Figge was able to steadily improve his times, though not improving position.

- During the final five minutes of the session, Figge repeatedly ran into slower traffic, ruining numerous fast laps.

- At the checkered flag, Figge had lowered his time to 1:17.079 (91.916 MPH), five tenths of a second better than his previous best time.

- Figge will start seventh for the CART Toyota Atlantic Championships 20th running on the streets of Long Beach. This significantly improves his 16th qualifying position in 2002.

- Capturing the pole was A.J. Allmendinger with a new lap record.

- Round Two of the 2003 season will commence Sunday, at 10:30 a.m. (PT).

"I'm disappointed," said Figge. "I obviously think we have a better car than we showed. I ran into a lot of traffic in some really bad spots when I had fresh tires. Tomorrow the goal will be to run a clean race and work my way to the front."

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