Bourdais leads final practice

The Newman/Haas Racing driver set a 59.915 second lap with an average of 99.561mph, putting him 0.283 seconds ahead of Paul Tracy.

The Forsythe Championship Racing driver led most of the session and should the rains hold off this afternoon, looks to be a genuine pole position contender. If it rains, he will start on the back row, having backed into the wall before his first flying lap in yesterday's qualifying session.

Justin Wilson, running the sole RuSPORT entry in the team's home race, was third quickest, but almost half a second slower than Tracy. Second Newman/Haas racer Bruno Junqueira was fourth, Oriol Servia of PKV Racing was fifth, but both had to sit out eight minutes of the session having each caused a red flag with spin and stalls.

The surprise of the session was the performance of Conquest Racing, who were sixth and seventh fastest. Both ran new tyres to set their times, but on a weekend where the softer red-walled Bridgestones don't seem to be making a lot of difference, that sort of performance could still see at least one of their cars starting in the top eight.

By contrast, the CTE Racing-HVM squad, for whom fine performances have been taken as read for much of the season, are struggling down in 13th and 15th places in the 16-car field.

Practice times:

Pos  Driver              Team                Time
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas       59.915
 2.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe        1:00.198  + 0.283
 3.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT         1:00.665  + 0.750
 4.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman/Haas     1:00.782  + 0.867
 5.  Oriol Servia        PKV             1:00.807  + 0.892
 6.  Charles Zwolsman    Conquest        1:00.807  + 0.892
 7.  Andrew Ranger       Conquest        1:00.864  + 0.949
 8.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia  1:01.003  + 1.088
 9.  AJ Allmendinger     Forsythe        1:01.011  + 1.096
10.  Will Power          Team Australia  1:01.088  + 1.173
11.  Mario Dominguez     Dale Coyne      1:01.115  + 1.200
12.  Katherine Legge     PKV             1:01.441  + 1.526
13.  Nelson Philippe     CTE-HVM         1:01.734  + 1.819
14.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne      1:02.011  + 2.096
15.  Dan Clarke          CTE-HVM         1:02.290  + 2.315
16.  Nicky Pastorelli    Rocketsports    1:03.429  + 4.014