Bourdais heads final practice

The Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing driver clocked a lap of 56.415 seconds (134.390 mph) to top the time sheets by 0.575 seconds, ahead of Will Power. The reigning champion was around half a second faster on three other laps as well.

Power and Team Australia teammate Simon Pagenaud were second and fourth fastest, split by Justin Wilson who ended the session spun and stalled after being over-brave through the final turn.

The RSPORTS pilot had also had a nasty moment earlier in the session when he punctured a right-rear tyre running over the towing pin that had dropped from one of the Safety Team trucks as it pull-started a stalled car. So hard did he have to brake to pull his car under control, he also punctured the front-left.

The closest the Cleveland crowd have to a local hero - Graham Rahal of Columbus, about 150 miles away - was fifth fastest in the second Newman/Haas/Lanigan car, albeit some three quarters of a second away from his teammate.

Robert Doornbos showed some improvement for the Minardi USA squad with sixth, ahead of the two Forsythe Championship Racing cars. Both Paul Tracy and Oriol Servia ran a considerable number of laps on the softer red compound, with which they struggled with in yesterday's first qualifying session.

Jan Heylen will be hoping his tenth place - 1.1 seconds from Bourdais - is representative of what he can achieve in qualifying, as he put the Conquest Racing machine ahead of Dan Clarke and both PKV Racing cars.

Clarke produced the most dramatic moment of the session when he spun exiting Turn 4 at high speed, and with barely a loss of momentum, masterfully recovered to carry on around to the pits.

Pos  Driver              Team                       Time
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas/Lanigan        56.415
 2.  Will Power          Team Australia             56.989  + 0.574
 3.  Justin Wilson       RSPORTS                    57.135  + 0.720
 4.  Simon Pagenaud      Team Australia             57.144  + 0.729
 5.  Graham Rahal        Newman/Haas/Lanigan        57.190  + 0.775
 6.  Robert Doornbos     Minardi Team USA           57.215  + 0.800
 7.  Oriol Servia        Forsythe Championship      57.358  + 0.943
 8.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe Championship      57.368  + 0.953
 9.  Alex Tagliani       RSPORTS                    57.409  + 0.994
10.  Jan Heylen          Conquest Racing            57.497  + 1.082
11.  Dan Clarke          Minardi Team USA           57.558  + 1.143
12.  Ryan Dalziel        Pacific Coast Motorsports  57.803  + 1.388
13.  Tristan Gommendy    PKV Racing                 57.833  + 1.418
14.  Neel Jani           PKV Racing                 58.046  + 1.631
15.  Alex Figge          Pacific Coast Motorsports  58.281  + 1.866
16.  Katherine Legge     Dale Coyne Racing          58.470  + 2.055
17.  Bruno Junqueira     Dale Coyne Racing          58.649  + 2.234