Castroneves tops final practice day

The Brazilian set a benchmark time of 39.3682s at 228.611mph in his Penske Dallara, as he edged out the consistently impressive Alex Tagliani (Sam Schmidt Motorsports) to lead the way on Friday.

"Qualifying tomorrow will be very tight," said Castroneves, who has started from pole for the past two years at Indy. "I can see that my team-mates will be strong ones, and there are other guys doing fast times out there, too.

"It will be interesting to see what happens in the Fast Nine. I think we will see speeds in the 228mph range tomorrow. It is going to be similar weather as today, but if it is a little bit humid, we may lose a little bit of power. I think everybody has something more."

Tagliani reckons he can find some more speed for the pole fight, but suspects he will get pushed back by the other Penske and Ganassi drivers come qualifying.

"We have a couple of things left. I think we were conservative this afternoon," he said. "We made some changes on the car without pushing the limits aerodynamically.

"I think it's going be very difficult to do a 228.3 mph, but it will have to be up there for a one-lap go. It's all about how consistent you can be and what's your draw.

"We feel that we are strong, but on the charts, there are a lot of cars that are strong. It's very difficult to have a good read. We ran very few laps this week, and we tried to run by ourselves to evaluate the right gearing and right downforce and make the right call on ride heights and all of that.

"I think we can go to bed tonight feeling we have a strong car, but the Ganassis and Penskes look tough. Hopefully when we pull everything out that we think we can, we'll be right there with them."

Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe were third and fourth for Ganassi and Penske respectively, while Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver Bertrand Baguette's fifth place was one of several eye-catching results for one-off entrants and smaller teams.

Sarah Fisher Racing continued its very strong form as Ed Carpenter took sixth, and 2005 Indy winner Dan Wheldon got Bryan Herta Autosport into the top 10.

Saturday's qualifying will initially set positions 10 to 24 on the grid, with the fastest nine cars then going into a pole shoot-out. The rest of the field will be decided on Sunday's Bump Day.

Pos  Driver              Team                     Time      Gap
 1.  Helio Castroneves   Penske                   39.3682s
 2.  Alex Tagliani       Sam Schmidt              39.4172s  + 0.0490s
 3.  Scott Dixon         Ganassi                  39.4424s  + 0.0742s
 4.  Ryan Briscoe        Penske                   39.4686s  + 0.1004s
 5.  Bertrand Baguette   Rahal Letterman Lanigan  39.4688s  + 0.1006s
 6.  Ed Carpenter        Sarah Fisher             39.4707s  + 0.1025s
 7.  Will Power          Penske                   39.4810s  + 0.1128s
 8.  Townsend Bell       Sam Schmidt              39.4864s  + 0.1182s
 9.  Oriol Servia        Newman/Haas              39.5465s  + 0.1783s
10.  Dan Wheldon         Herta                    39.5669s  + 0.1987s
11.  Dario Franchitti    Ganassi                  39.5722s  + 0.2040s
12.  Takuma Sato         KV                       39.6382s  + 0.2700s
13.  Vitor Meira         Foyt                     39.6487s  + 0.2805s
14.  JR Hildebrand       Panther                  39.6582s  + 0.2900s
15.  Marco Andretti      Andretti                 39.6737s  + 0.3055s
16.  James Hinchcliffe   Newman/Haas              39.6743s  + 0.3061s
17.  Graham Rahal        Ganassi                  39.6842s  + 0.3160s
18.  Charlie Kimball     Ganassi                  39.7374s  + 0.3692s
19.  Buddy Rice          Panther                  39.7465s  + 0.3813s
20.  Justin Wilson       Dreyer & Reinbold        39.8010s  + 0.4328s
21.  Alex Lloyd          Dale Coyne               39.8024s  + 0.4342s
22.  Danica Patrick      Andretti                 39.8212s  + 0.4530s
23.  Paul Tracy          Dreyer & Reinbold        39.8238s  + 0.4556s
24.  Davey Hamilton      Dreyer & Reinbold        39.8707s  + 0.5025s
25.  Tony Kanaan         KV                       39.8747s  + 0.5065s
26.  Ho-Pin Tung         Schmidt/Dragon           39.9106s  + 0.5424s
27.  Pippa Mann          Conquest                 39.9234s  + 0.5552s
28.  EJ Viso             KV                       39.9280s  + 0.5598s
29.  Bruno Junqueira     Foyt                     39.9298s  + 0.5616s
30.  Jay Howard          Rahal/Schmidt            39.9361s  + 0.5679s
31.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    Andretti                 39.9637s  + 0.5955s
32.  Tomas Scheckter     KV/SH                    39.9749s  + 0.6067s
33.  John Andretti       Petty/Andretti           40.0159s  + 0.6477s
34.  Ana Beatriz         Dreyer & Reinbold        40.0259s  + 0.6577s
35.  Raphael Matos       AFS                      40.1106s  + 0.7424s
36.  Mike Conway         Andretti                 40.2577s  + 0.8895s
37.  James Jakes         Dale Coyne               40.2871s  + 0.9189s
38.  Sebastian Saavedra  Conquest                 40.3721s  + 1.0039s
39.  Scott Speed         Dragon                   40.4411s  + 1.0729s