Castroneves fastest on day two
Helio Castroneves edged out his Penske team-mate Will Power to set the fastest time on the final day of IndyCar Series testing at Barber Motorsports Park on Tuesday
The schedule was slightly reorganised after overnight rain, with both sessions ultimately taking place on a dry track and both seeing a Penske driver on top. Power led the way with a 1m11.9636s in the morning before Castroneves beat that with a 1m11.9434s later on.
The Brazilian had a spin through the gravel during the test, but kept his car out of the barriers.
"I was expecting something different from the car because it kept changing throughout the day based on the track," said Castroneves. "I was expecting the car was going to push but it went the opposite way. The good news is that nothing was damaged."
Penske's third driver Ryan Briscoe was fourth on combined times, with Ganassi's Scott Dixon denying Penske a top-three sweep by grabbing third - though his champion team-mate Dario Franchitti struggled to get a set-up he was happy with and was only 11th.
Newman/Haas' spectacular test continued as Oriol Servia and James Hinchcliffe took fifth and seventh on the final timesheets, having held a one-two for a while. They were split by KV's Takuma Sato, the Japanese driver running 'Pray for Japan' logos on his car as the tragic events in his homeland dominated his thoughts.
Marco Andretti ended up as top Andretti Autosport driver in eighth, with his next-best team-mate Ryan Hunter-Reay in 10th.
They were split on combined times by Justin Wilson, but the Dreyer & Reinbold driver had to rely on his Monday lap to earn that position having been disappointed with the car's pace on new tyres on Tuesday.
After his strong Monday performance, it was a disappointing Tuesday for Mike Conway - the Andretti driver ending his day with an early crash.
"I was braking into Turns 14 and 15; the rear got very, very loose," he explained. "I corrected it once, corrected it twice, but the second time the rear just kissed the grass and that was it. With the wet grass, it just went straight off."
Panther's JR Hildebrand missed the second day of testing following his crash at the end of Monday's test, with the team deciding to take the car back to its base for repairs.
Combined testing times: Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Helio Castroneves Penske 1m11.9434s 2. Will Power Penske 1m11.9636s + 0.0202s 3. Scott Dixon Ganassi 1m12.2815s + 0.3381s 4. Ryan Briscoe Penske 1m12.2954s + 0.3520s 5. Oriol Servia Newman/Haas 1m12.3594s + 0.4160s 6. Takuma Sato KV 1m12.4742s + 0.5308s 7. James Hinchcliffe Newman/Haas 1m12.5200s + 0.5766s 8. Marco Andretti Andretti 1m12.5255s + 0.5821s 9. Justin Wilson Dreyer & Reinbold 1m12.6791s + 0.7357s 10. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti 1m12.7749s + 0.8315s 11. Dario Franchitti Ganassi 1m12.8447s + 0.9013s 12. Alex Tagliani Schmidt 1m12.8533s + 0.9099s 13. Danica Patrick Andretti 1m12.9638s + 1.0204s 14. Graham Rahal Ganassi 1m12.9804s + 1.0370s 15. EJ Viso KV 1m13.0170s + 1.0736s 16. Mike Conway Andretti 1m13.0338s + 1.0904s 17. Vitor Meira Foyt 1m13.1151s + 1.1717s 18. Simona de Silvestro HVM 1m13.2671s + 1.3237s 19. Sebastien Bourdais Coyne 1m13.2904s + 1.3470s 20. Charlie Kimball Ganassi 1m13.3351s + 1.3917s 21. James Jakes Coyne 1m13.4323s + 1.4889s 22. Sebastian Saavedra Conquest 1m13.6503s + 1.7069s 23. Ana Beatriz Dreyer & Reinbold 1m13.9431s + 1.9997s 24. JR Hildebrand Panther 1m14.5534s + 2.6100s
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