Formula 1 refugee Sebastien Bourdais was delighted with his first Superleague Formula pole position at Jarama in Spain on Saturday, and believes he has a great chance of recording his third race win in the series on Sunday.
Bourdais just beat Anderlecht's Yelmer Buurman to pole by 0.006sec in his Sevilla car, after making a mistake in the final sector that almost cost him top spot.
"A little mistake can cost you a lot around here," he said. "It was very tight with Yelmer, but I'm very happy to record my first pole. We were strong on long runs in practice, so we should be in good shape in the races."
Buurman said: "I'm happy to be starting from the front row, but when you miss out by such a small margin you always think 'if only I'd braked later here, or earlier there'. It's so easy to make a mistake on this track, and I ran a little wide at Turn 1 because I was struggling to get the heat into the tires."
Third-place starter Esteban Guerrieri of Olympiacos added that tires will be the key to Sunday's races, the final rounds of the soccer club-based series. "The tire degredation here is huge," he said. "It's going to be a very demanding race. My goal is to get second in the championship, as I think to win it now is almost impossible for us."