Castroneves blazes a trail at Laguna

Taking full advantage of his recuperating champion team mate Gil de Ferran's absence, Castroneves lapped his Reynard-Honda in 1m07.2s, despite a reduction in turbo boost pressure over last season. He was well clear of circuit specialist Bryan Herta, winner at Laguna in 1998 and '99, who overcame a couple of troubled days of running in his Zakspeed/Forsythe Reynard-Ford to set 1m07.8s.

"I love it here," said Herta. "This is a very good track for me, and it's a great place for us to prepare for the 2001 season. But I don't know where his [Castroneves'] lap came from."

Also dipping into the 1m07s bracket was rookie Tora Takagi, last year's Formula Nippon champion and an ex-F1 driver with Tyrrell and Arrows. He recovered from a shunt yesterday to set 1m07.9s in his Walker Racing-run Reynard-Toyota.

Next up was Michel Jourdain Jr (Bettenhausen Lola-Ford), ahead of Cristiano da Matta (Newman-Haas Lola-Toyota) and Jimmy Vasser (Patrick Reynard-Toyota).

Da Matta, who was fastest on Wednesday before setting a 1m08.0s on Thursday, said: "At the end of the day everyone treated it like we were qualifying but we were still trying new things and were not in our fastest trim so we dropped down in the order. Helio pretty much set the pace, but we completed almost 350 miles over the two days and are pretty happy with the things we learned."

Also on track on Thursday was Max Wilson, aboard Arciero-Brooke Racing's Lola-Phoenix (nee Mercedes), Patrick Carpentier (Player's/Forsythe Reynard-Ford), Roberto Moreno (Patrick Reynard-Toyota), Nicolas Minassian and Bruno Junqueira (Ganassi Lola-Toyotas), Scott Dixon (PacWest Reynard-Toyota) and Team Rahal duo Max Papis and Kenny Brack (Lola-Fords). The latter came hotfoot from International Race of Champions practice at Daytona, where he is scheduled to race today (Friday).

Another driver clocking up the air miles was Castroneves who, immediately after the test, caught a flight to Nazareth where he is scheduled to test at the one-mile oval at the weekend.

"I'm looking forward to getting out on the oval," said the Brazilian. "This will be my first short oval test and it will be good to see what the Reynard-Honda can do."