Briscoe stays on top in final practice

The Australian set a 1m10.322s lap early on, and though his Penske team-mate Will Power kept edging closer, Briscoe stayed ahead by 0.038 seconds.

Ganassi duo Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti were next up, with Ryan Hunter-Reay again the top Andretti runner in fifth.

A surprise sixth went to Conquest's Sebastian Saavedra, as the young Colombian showed his best IndyCar form so far.

KV Racing Technology had three cars in the top 11, with Tony Kanaan, Takuma Sato and EJ Viso ending up seventh, ninth and 11th respectively, sandwiching Andretti's Marco Andretti and Newman/Haas driver James Hinchcliffe.

The other Newman/Haas car was involved in the only significant incident of the session, as Oriol Servia slid into the Turn 6 barriers in the final few minutes, damaging the front of his Dallara-Honda.

While two Penske drivers led the way, the third car of Helio Castroneves was down in 13th. Ganassi's Graham Rahal also struggled in 15th, and Justin Wilson was only 18th for Dreyer & Reinbold.

Qualifying takes place at 2.25pm local time this afternoon.

Pos  Driver               Team               Time        Gap
 1.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske             1m10.3222s
 2.  Will Power           Penske             1m10.3602s  + 0.0380s
 3.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi            1m10.5589s  + 0.2367s
 4.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi            1m10.5950s  + 0.2728s
 5.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti           1m10.6509s  + 0.3287s
 6.  Sebastian Saavedra   Conquest           1m10.7215s  + 0.3993s
 7.  Tony Kanaan          KV                 1m10.7390s  + 0.4168s
 8.  Marco Andretti       Andretti           1m10.8437s  + 0.5215s
 9.  Takuma Sato          KV                 1m10.8919s  + 0.5697s
10.  James Hinchcliffe    Newman/Haas        1m10.9184s  + 0.5962s
11.  EJ Viso              KV                 1m10.9617s  + 0.6395s
12.  Oriol Servia         Newman/Haas        1m10.9772s  + 0.6550s
13.  Helio Castroneves    Penske             1m10.9899s  + 0.6677s
14.  Danica Patrick       Andretti           1m10.9946s  + 0.6724s
15.  Graham Rahal         Ganassi            1m11.0392s  + 0.7170s
16.  Mike Conway          Andretti           1m11.0491s  + 0.7269s
17.  Alex Tagliani        Sam Schmidt        1m11.0507s  + 0.7285s
18.  Justin Wilson        Dreyer & Reinbold  1m11.0673s  + 0.7451s
19.  Vitor Meira          Foyt               1m11.2257s  + 0.9035s
20.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM                1m11.4465s  + 1.1243s
21.  Charlie Kimball      Ganassi            1m11.5582s  + 1.2360s
22.  Raphael Matos        AFS                1m11.5880s  + 1.2658s
23.  Sebastien Bourdais   Dale Coyne         1m11.6159s  + 1.2937s
24.  Paul Tracy           Dragon             1m11.7337s  + 1.4115s
25.  JR Hildebrand        Panther            1m11.9678s  + 1.6456s
26.  Ana Beatriz          Dreyer & Reinbold  1m12.2099s  + 1.8877s
27.  James Jakes          Dale Coyne         1m12.3638s  + 2.0416s