Allmendinger sets early pace

The American, who has won the last three races, had a spin which temporarily allowed championship leader Sebastien Bourdais into top slot, but following the eight-minute penalty suffered by anyone who causes a session to be red flagged, Forsythe Championship Racing driver Allmendinger emerged from the pits to put the top time 0.33 seconds beyond the reach of Justin Wilson.

The Briton, who started second on the grid here last year alongside Allmendinger when both were RuSPORT drivers, pipped Bourdais by 0.006 seconds on his final flying lap. The French Newman/Haas ace was 0.2 seconds up on Paul Tracy. Tracy had a number of minor incidents in the course of the 75-minute session, brushing walls and having a quick spin.

The man who impressed most - aside from Allmendinger - was Team Australia's Will Power, who was not only consummately fastest of the rookies (almost a second up on his closest fellow fresher, Dan Clarke) he was also over 0.6 seconds quicker than team-mate Alex Tagliani to take fifth place.

Oriol Servia (PKV Racing) and Nelson Philippe (CTE Racing-HVM) did their customary fine jobs to beat the second cars from both Newman/Haas and RuSPORT, driven by Bruno Junqueira and Cristiano da Matta respectively.

Nicky Pastorelli returned to the second Rocketsports car, but struck the wall at Turn 1 after 35 minutes.

Practice times:

Pos  Driver              Team                Time
 1.  AJ Allmendinger     Forsythe        1:00.463
 2.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT         1:00.790  + 0.327
 3.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas     1:00.796  + 0.333
 4.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe        1:01.008  + 0.545
 5.  Will Power          Team Australia  1:01.184  + 0.721
 6.  Oriol Servia        PKV             1:01.448  + 0.985
 7.  Nelson Philippe     CTE-HVM         1:01.641  + 1.178
 8.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman/Haas     1:01.665  + 1.202
 9.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia  1:01.807  + 1.344
10.  Cristiano da Matta  RuSPORT         1:01.838  + 1.375
11.  Dan Clarke          CTE-HVM         1:02.028  + 1.565
12.  Katherine Legge     PKV             1:02.358  + 1.895
13.  Andrew Ranger       Conquest        1:02.429  + 1.966
14.  Mario Dominguez     Dale Coyne      1:02.596  + 2.133
15.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne      1:02.785  + 2.322
16.  Charles Zwolsman    Conquest        1:03.400  + 2.937
17.  Tonis Kasemets      Rocketsports    1:03.491  + 3.028
18.  Nicky Pastorelli    Rocketsports    1:04.097  + 3.634