Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Allmendinger leads final practice

Forsythe Championship Racing's new recruit AJ Allmendinger continued his strong seam of form by topping this morning's free practice session

The American ran off the track at Turn 2 mid-session, but came out again and on his final flying lap nailed a quickest time of 58.175 seconds, an average of 121.537mph, beating reigning champion and current championship leader Sebastien Bourdais by 0.079 seconds.

The Newman/Haas Racing driver in turn was 0.029 seconds ahead of RuSPORT's Justin Wilson who appears to have got his car back to the form he displayed in yesterday's free practice but which went AWOL come first qualifying. Wilson's new teammate Cristiano da Matta appears to have improved his car also, and recorded seventh fastest time.

Compatriot Bruno Junqueira also managed to get in a good lap in the second Newman/Haas car to go fourth fastest, despite having two flying laps blocked by slower traffic.

Paul Tracy was fifth fastest, yet his time was just 0.121 seconds off teammate Allmendinger's top lap.

Notable improvements since yesterday's qualifying session were made by the Conquest team whose drivers Andrew Ranger (who lies third in the championship) and Charles Zwolsman were eighth and 13th fastest, while CTE Racing-HVM appeared to have lost some of their impressive pace from yesterday's hotter conditions, and slipped to 10th (Nelson Philippe) and 12th (Dan Clarke).

PKV Racing's Oriol Servia ended up in the Turn 11 tyre barriers again, after recording ninth fastest time, while teammate Katherine Legge was 14th, about 0.8 seconds behind.

Saturday practice times:

Pos  Driver              Team                Time
 1.  AJ Allmendinger     Forsythe          58.175
 2.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas       58.254  + 0.079
 3.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT           58.283  + 0.108
 4.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman/Haas       58.286  + 0.111
 5.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe          58.295  + 0.120
 6.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia    58.656  + 0.481
 7.  Cristiano da Matta  RuSPORT           58.679  + 0.504
 8.  Andrew Ranger       Conquest          58.995  + 0.820
 9.  Oriol Servia        PKV               59.151  + 0.976
10.  Nelson Philippe     CTE-HVM           59.268  + 1.093
11.  Will Power          Team Australia    59.527  + 1.352
12.  Dan Clarke          CTE-HVM           59.694  + 1.519
13.  Charles Zwolsman    Conquest          59.808  + 1.633
14.  Katherine Legge     PKV               59.928  + 1.753
15.  Mario Dominguez     Dale Coyne      1:00.080  + 1.905
16.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne      1:00.318  + 2.143
17.  Nicky Pastorelli    Rocketsports    1:00.341  + 2.166
18.  Tonis Kasemets      Rocketsports    1:00.716  + 2.541

Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Mixed results for team switchers
Next article Junqueira snatches Portland pole

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe