Long Beach, Calif. ? Sebastien Bourdais had the best qualifying lap and the best line Saturday at the Long Beach Grand Prix.

Looking ahead to today’s season-opener, Bourdais, last year’s top rookie in the Champ Car World Series, noted the drivers and teams are facing a number of questions about new rules and equipment.

Asked how they were going to deal with rules requiring two green flag pit stops, a mix of hard and soft tires and a new “push to pass” button that will give the turbocharged engines a limited 50-horsepower boost to promote passing, the Frenchman shrugged and shook his head.

“I’m sure the computers are going to smoke this evening,” he said, drawing chuckles from Newman/Haas Racing teammate Bruno Junqueira and defending series champion Paul Tracy.

Bourdais leaped from ninth in Friday’s opening qualifying session to second, joining pole-winner Junqueira on the front row of the 18-car lineup. Bourdais’ fast lap of 1 minute, 9.80 seconds (101.501 mph) came with two minutes left in the 30-minute session and was short of the 1:08.813 (102.808) posted Friday by Junqueira.

Junqueira, starting from the pole for the eighth time in his career, said it’s going to be guesswork when to make the required green-flag stops — which must include a four-tire change — and when to use the “push to pass” button, which is limited to a total use of 60 seconds during the race.