SA on pole for Mexico quali

Making the most of fresh tyres, the 22-year-old from Cape Town put Team South Africa ahead of the other 21 nations contesting this ninth round of the inaugural >I>World Cup of Motorsport.

With seconds remaining in the 60-minute session, which was held in warm, dry conditions, Simpson recorded a fastest time of the morning of 1 min 24.016 sec on only his 12th and final lap.

This put him a significant 0.620 sec ahead of second-placed Team Ireland (Ralph Firman). T

hird fastest was former Formula One driver Jos Verstappen of the Netherlands, followed by Switzerland's Neel Jani, Brazil's Christian Fittipaldi (another former F1 driver), Great Britain?s Robbie Kerr and Mexico's Salvador Duran.

A very pleased Simpson commented afterwards that the track had got faster as the session progressed and the team waited until late in the session (he was the 18^th of the 22 drivers to take to the track) before sending him out.

With a new set of tyres he immediately went to the top of the time sheets after just five laps. A quick pit stop to make some fine adjustments and he was out again for his final three laps and fastest time of the day.