LEXINGTON, Ohio (AP) Patrick Carpentier will start the Mid-Ohio Grand Prix on Sunday in a position that's become unfamiliar to him - on the pole.

Carpentier's quickest lap of 122.925 mph Saturday at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course made him the top qualifier at a CART event for the first time since he won the pole in 1998 at Milwaukee - 83 races ago.

The 30-year-old Canadian's performance ended a streak of three straight poles overall and five in a row on road courses for points leader Cristiano da Matta, who will start third in Sunday's race.

It also was the first pole of the season for a Reynard chassis.

Sharing the front row with Carpentier's Ford-Reynard will be da Matta's Newman-Haas Racing teammate, Christian Fittipaldi, who qualified second at 122.675 mph.

Carpentier picked up both points available in Friday and Saturday qualifying to tie for third in the driver standings with Bruno Junqueira and Michel Jourdain Jr. All have 74 points. Da Matta leads with 122, followed by Dario Franchitti with 84.

As Carpentier predicted Friday, Saturday's top speed did not break the track record of 124.394 mph, set by Franchitti in 1999 and tied by Gil de Ferran the following year.

Most of the action in the hour-long qualifying session took place in the final few minutes.

As they've done frequently this year under CART's revised road-course qualifying format, drivers of the faster cars waited for slower cars to take the track early and put down a coating of rubber that would add grip and make the track faster.

Only three cars ran in the first 22 minutes. The rest of the field gradually moved out, Carpentier being the last to appear with about 14 minutes to go.

In the final five minutes, the name atop the speed chart changed six times, with the lead going to da Matta, Kenny Brack, Fittipaldi, Brack again, da Matta again and finally Carpentier. His top speed on the ninth of his 11 qualifying laps held and no one else could improve on it as they got caught in traffic.

"I thought it (being the fastest qualifier) was a fluke yesterday, so I'm pretty surprised" at winning the pole, Carpentier said.

"The car was fast for one lap and I had to do it and it just happened.

"I'm really happy because everybody said yesterday that I got the provisional pole because of a red flag. People said I should stay in today and save tires for tomorrow, but I said I think we have a shot, so we went for it and it paid off."

Carpentier was aided Friday when Toro Takagi spun out and couldn't get his car started with 90 seconds left in the qualifying session, bringing out a red flag that ended it prematurely.

Fittipaldi said he was content with what will be his highest starting position of the season.

"Pat put it together and we didn't," he said. "I'm happy to start on the front row. It's going to be a long race with a minimum of three stops, so a lot can happen, but at least we are starting up front. We have the first challenge behind us."

Da Matta said he doesn't expect to be as dominating on road courses the rest of the year as he's been to date.

"It looks like people are definitely making some improvements on road courses and closing the gap on us," he said.

"At the beginning of the season we had an advantage on the field, but everyone has caught up to us. ... Now we have to go back and try to pick up two-tenths (of a second) and catch up with Pat so he doesn't run away from us" in the race.

Rounding out the top 10 were Brack, Tony Kanaan, Junqueira, Alex Tagliani, Michael Andretti, Paul Tracy and Takagi. The race Sunday is scheduled for 82 laps or 2 hours, 15 minutes, whichever comes first, and at 209.5 miles would be the longest in the 21-year history of CART events at Mid-Ohio.

Max Papis qualified 14th as the replacement for Adrian Fernandez, who is recuperating in Arizona after breaking his left hip in a crash at Vancouver two weeks ago.

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