Bourdais beats F1 mark on day two

The Frenchman lapped the 2.238-mile circuit in 1:05.880, beating the previous record, established by Ricardo Zonta in a Toyota Formula 1 car in 2006, by a substantial 0.429 seconds. The Newman/Haas/Lanigan driver's average speed was 122.295mph, and he was rewarded with a surprise $5,000 cheque from series owner Kevin Kalkhoven.

Bourdais' lap put him over half a second quicker than his nearest challenger Team Australia's Will Power, and six tenths of a second quicker than PKV Racing's Neel Jani, who just pipped the second Newman/Haas/Lanigan car of Graham Rahal.

The times were not entirely representative, as a major off by Bruno Junqueira in the Dale Coyne Racing car ended the session prematurely, but through the day, only Power had looked a consistent threat to Bourdais.

Paul Tracy, yesterday's pacesetter, missed a lot of set-up time as his Forsythe Championship Racing team needed to change his differential in the morning. All the drivers have been practising standing starts, both with and without launch control, hence the excessive strains on the diffs.

Atlantic champion Simon Pagenaud did an excellent job to back up Power's pace for Team Australia, finishing the day ahead of Tracy, and the RuSPORT and Rocketsports drivers Justin Wilson and Alex Tagliani. The Canadian and the Briton finished just 0.005 seconds apart.

Matt Halliday continued to impress with his pace in the Conquest Racing car, as ninth fastest driver (though 10th fastest car as Wilson set a quick time in both his race car and his spare). Halliday was just a second off Bourdais despite a number of mechanical niggles.

Robert Doornbos of Team Minardi USA had been fast in the morning, but a crash in the daunting Turn 6 (where temporary team mate Zsolt Baumgartner crashed yesterday) ended his hopes of getting into the top six.

Tristan Gommendy got much closer to PKV Racing team-mate Neel Jani's pace this morning, but admits he is physically out of shape and had to go home at lunch time after struggling to turn the steering wheel.

Day two combined times:

Pos  Driver              Team                 Time
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas/Lanigan  1:05.880
 2.  Will Power          Team Australia       1:06.424
 3.  Neel Jani           PKV Racing           1:06.516
 4.  Graham Rahal        Newman/Haas/Lanigan  1:06.561
 5.  Simon Pagenaud      Team Australia       1:06.699
 6.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT              1:06.755
 7.  Alex Tagliani       Rocketsports         1:06.760
 8.  Matt Halliday       Conquest Racing      1:06.930
 9.  Robert Doornbos     Minardi USA          1:06.959
10.  Bruno Junqueira     Dale Coyne Racing    1:07.048
11.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe             1:07.067
12.  Katherine Legge     Dale Coyne Racing    1:07.727
13.  Tristan Gommendy    PKV Racing           1:08.325
14.  Alex Figge          Pacific Coast        1:08.521
15.  Ryan Dalziel        Pacific Coast        1:08.825