Montreal ? It was just another routine day for Cristiano da Matta as he took the pole for the inaugural Montreal Molson-Indy with a series of sizzling laps late in Saturday’s qualifying.

It was the sixth pole in 13 tries this season for the Brazilian driver, who also has six wins while dominating the CART series with his Toyota-powered Newman-Haas Racing Lola.

“I had good tires and plenty of fuel at the end, so my only concern was to push it,” da Matta said.

The latest triumph added another championship point for Da Matta, raising his lead over Patrick Carpentier and Bruno Junqueira to 44 points heading into the 13th of 19 races.

Da Matta started the day on the provisional pole with a time of 1 minute, 19.465 seconds, or 122.726 mph, on the 2.709-mile, 14-turn Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. He was knocked off the top spot for brief periods during the 35-minute session by Junqueira and then by Scotland’s Dario Franchitti.

Each time, the 5-foot-4, 125-pound driver known to his friends and crew as “Shorty,” came up big.

Junqueira ran a lap of 122.908 with about 15 minutes to go and da Matta waited impatiently through a 20-minute red flag after Michael Andretti spewed oil on the track.

CART drivers are guaranteed 30 minutes of green flag time in each qualifying session and they went out again with 9:28 remaining. Da Matta retook the top spot almost immediately.

Franchitti then went ahead with a lap of 122.928 with under 3 minutes to go.

That’s when da Matta came back with consecutive laps of 123.231, 123.266 and, as the checkered flag waved, 123.512.