Ex-Champ Car drivers get up to speed

Justin Wilson had fastest lap of the morning session and fourth-fastest of the day as practice began Friday for the Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg.

It marked just the second IndyCar Series race for Wilson's Newman/Haas/Lanigan team and four other former Champ Car teams that joined the IndyCar Series weeks before the start of the 2008 season.

The replacement for three-time Champ Car winner Sebastien Bourdais, Wilson recorded a lap of 1:03.521 around the 1.8-mile, 14-turn course through the streets of downtown St Petersburg.

"I'm really pleased, considering it's our first time at the track," Wilson said. "We'd only had 15 laps in road-course configuration before we came here. The whole team did a fantastic job. We've got plenty of room to improve. I just want to keep working at our race setup."

The lap was just a shade off the laps recorded by the day's fastest runners, including Helio Castroneves, who led the way with a lap of 1:03.3068 in the No. 3 Team Penske Honda/Dallara.

Andretti Green Racing teammates Tony Kanaan and Hideki Mutoh had the second and third fastest laps of the day respectively.

Wilson was followed on the timesheet by fellow Champ Car refugees Will Power and Franck Perera, while another former Champ Car driver, Oriol Servia, was in the top 10.

In the season opener last weekend on the 1.5-mile oval at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Servia was the best finisher, at 12th, among the former Champ Car pilots.

"Every change we make is going in the positive direction," Servia said. "We feel pretty happy to have both (K Racing Technology's) cars up there in the top 10."

Both sessions were busy, with 26 cars recording a total of 1,252 laps and several incidents, none severe. "It's busy out there," Kanaan said. "It's nice to see a big field. Every time we go out, we see traffic. It's a good problem to have."

Castroneves set his fastest lap shortly before his car stalled and had to be towed back to the pits. "It was a very dirty track, but we were able to put together a good lap," Castroneves said. "We're still working on a couple of guys, so we weren't able to get a clean lap, but I feel very happy for the result."

Drivers will negotiate the series' new qualifying format on Saturday, and they might be doing it during the rain.

The format eliminates the old single-car, single-lap opening stage with a knockout format similar to that used by Formula One. The fastest six drivers will be pitted together in a 10-minute session for the pole position.

"If some of us make it all the way to the end, our arms will be falling off," Kanaan said. "Pushing for an hour each and every lap is going to be tough."

Pos  Driver              Speed     Time      Laps
 1.  Helio Castroneves   102.359   1:03.307   37
 2.  Tony Kanaan         102.260   1:03.368   50
 3.  Hideki Mutoh        102.129   1:03.449   35
 4.  Justin Wilson       102.014   1:03.521   56
 5.  Will Power          101.890   1:03.598   55
 6.  Franck Perera       101.831   1:03.635   48
 7.  Vitor Meira         101.806   1:03.651   63
 8.  Marco Andretti      101.795   1:03.658   46
 9.  Scott Dixon         101.670   1:03.736   51
10.  Oriol Servia        101.667   1:03.738   55
11.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    101.666   1:03.738   27
12.  Ryan Briscoe        101.560   1:03.804   53
13.  Darren Manning      101.265   1:03.991   53
14.  Graham Rahal        101.062   1:04.119   56
15.  Bruno Junqueira     100.920   1:04.209   45
16.  Buddy Rice          100.871   1:04.241   53
17.  Dan Wheldon         100.791   1:04.291   54
18.  Enrique Bernoldi    100.424   1:04.526   52
19.  Ernesto Viso        100.301   1:04.606   46
20.  Danica Patrick      100.044   1:04.772   44
21.  Townsend Bell       100.006   1:04.796   54
22.  Jay Howard           99.894   1:04.869   42
23.  AJ Foyt IV           99.159   1:05.350   51
24.  Ed Carpenter         98.566   1:05.743   57
25.  Mario Moraes         98.387   1:05.862   33
26.  Marty Roth           94.213   1:08.780   36