American Kirby Chambliss set a track record in a lightening-fast Qualifying session on Saturday in Porto, finishing ahead of Austria’s Hannes Arch and Britain’s Paul Bonhomme in a thrilling championship battle played out in front of 350,000 enthusiastic spectators watching from the banks of Porto and Gaia. Bonhomme and Arch are even in the championship with 45 points ahead of the final two races of 2008.

After a disappointing result at the last race in Budapest where he came last, Chambliss was back on form today, flying the fast and furious Porto course just metres above surface of the Douro River with a dazzling time of 1:07.34. Arch was just 0.22 seconds behind and Bonhomme 0.59 seconds adrift of Chambliss on the notoriously high-speed course in Portugal. Steve Jones, who won last year’s race in Porto, was only 9th and failed to qualify for Sunday’s Super Eights. He will be racing three others in the Point One competition.

“It’s a straight track and we’re all going fast,” said Chambliss. “Everybody’s good with the chicane and you don’t lose speed there. The key is controlling the Gs on the loop. You’ve got to try to figure out how to stay right under the limit but not be too far under. We were all close to the G limit. It’s a fast track.”

Bonhomme and Arch are atop the world championship with 45 points each with Bonhomme leading thanks to his three victories to Arch’s one win. Chambliss is in third, 9 points behind. Porto is the penultimate race of the World Championship ahead of the finale next month in Perth, Australia.

Arch, who won the last race in Budapest was delighted to have the second fastest time of Qualifying. “Absolutely, I’m happy,” he said. “I was really struggling with my results from training and I was worried about today’s Qualifying. But I was able to fly two safe runs without penalty and even had fast times. So that makes me very happy about tomorrow. The Qualifying was good preparation for the race.”

Race Day starts at 13:00 local time, kicking off with the Point One competition at 14:30 followed by the Super Eights and finals.