VANCOUVER -- CART series leader Paul Tracy had the fastest lap at provisional qualifying yesterday but was bumped from the pole after being penalized for blocking competitors. Bruno Junqueira wound up on the provisional pole after Tracy lost his fast lap for blocking Junqueira and other drivers during qualifying for the Vancouver Molson Indy.

The announcement was made after CART stewards, headed by chief steward Chris Kneifel, spent 4a hours watching videotape of the qualifying session and gathering information from the teams involved.

CART issued a statement saying Tracy violated the rule barring drivers from "not running at full qualifying pace" and not letting faster cars pass.

That gave Junqueira the top qualifying spot heading into today's final time trials, as well as earning one point for winning the provisional pole and guaranteeing the Brazilian driver a front row starting spot in tomorrow's street race.

Tracy lost his fast lap of one minute 1.706 seconds and reverted to his second-best lap of 1:01.845, which placed him second on the provisional grid.

Tracy and his team had no comment after the decision was announced.

The anger aimed at Tracy after the qualifying session came from Newman/Haas Racing, which fields cars for Junqueira and third-place qualifier Sebastien Bourdais, and Rocketsports Racing, whose entry is Canadian Alex Tagliani. He was fourth yesterday.

Both teams threatened to protest, complaining that Tracy, who posted his fast lap early in the 30-minute session, did some major blocking on the tight 1.78-mile street circuit in the last few laps.

The protests were never filed but CART immediately began an investigation.

Junqueira managed to put in his fast lap of 1:01.706 on his last trip around the track, after finally passing Tracy. But he was very frustrated after losing what he said was a faster lap when he came up behind Tracy before that.

"It's kind of frustrating because you're halfway through the lap and you're already much, much faster and you see the guys very slow in front of you," Junqueira said. "To be fair, it's a difficult thing to go out and watch on the rules. The guy that's slow has to let the other guys pass."

French rookie Sebastien Bourdais was third at 1:01.9 and Montreal's Tagliani was fourth, a tenth of a second behind Bourdais.

Tracy's teammate at Player's Forsythe Racing, Patrick Carpentier of Joliette, Que., finished eighth in the first qualifying round.

The entire 19-car field choked the narrow street circuit in the final few minutes of the session after a crash stopped qualifying for several minutes.

Junqueira said he was setting up for a fast lap when he caught Tracy and Tagliani going 20 miles per hour, apparently trying to open a gap with the cars in front of them.

"I think we should do something and see if we can change this qualifying format because it's not been very good."