David Brabham fended off Gil de Ferran to put Highcroft Acura on pole position for the Long Beach round of the American Le Mans Series.
Fresh from winning in St Petersburg two weeks ago, Brabham set a new qualifying record with his time of 1m11.627s, which came in response to being pushed back to a provisional third on the grid by the De Ferran and Fernandez Acuras.
Brabham's pole lap initially put him nearly a second clear of de Ferran, whose eponymous team had started on pole for both the preceding rounds. De Ferran then steadily narrowed the gap, eventually lapping just 0.072 seconds slower than the Highcroft car, only to then spin and tap the wall at Turn 1 moments after setting the time.
Fernandez Racing's LMP2 Acura took third overall and class pole, although Guy Smith showed the Dyson Lola-Mazda's improved form by getting to within 0.2s of Adrian Fernandez's time.
Long Beach marks the final appearance of the factory GT1 Corvettes, which will race for the last time at the Le Mans 24 Hours before Chevrolet introduces its new GT2 car later in the season. Olivier Beretta added to his pole record as he beat team-mate Johnny O'Connell to class pole by 0.192s.
Jaime Melo put Risi Ferrari on GT2 pole after a titanic battle in the slowest but best supported class. The Brazilian dominated the first half of the GT session, before Patrick Long closed in and then edged ahead with the Flying Lizard Porsche.
After Melo's first response ended in a trip down the Turn 1 escape road, the Brazilian regrouped and snatched pole back with a 1m20.111s lap. Farnbacher Loles Porsche's then pushed the Flying Lizard car back to third, as Long's last chance to retaliate was spoiled when he was delayed by the Primetime Dodge Viper.
The two Rahal Letterman BMWs completed the GT2 top five.