Franchitti sets practice pace in Mexico

After struggling to find traction in Friday's session, the Scot's Team Kool Green Reynard-Honda was bang on the pace throughout Saturday's practice. His 1m16.349s was three-tenths quicker than reigning champion Gil de Ferran's Penske-run Reynard-Honda and the Newman/Haas Lola-Toyota of Cristiano da Matta.

"I think you're going to see the lap times be a lot faster," predicted Franchitti of qualifying. "Another challenge right now is traffic, because nobody wants to go off line here so you get guys queuing up behind people and some aren't using their mirrors. That makes it frustrating, especially when the track is getting better and you want to get a fast lap in."

A number of disruptions interrupted the session, including da Matta - who spun and stalled at Turn Four.

Just as the session resumed for a final five-minute blast, CART returnee Alex Zanardi blew his Honda engine and brought the session to an end. The Italian was 17th fastest.

Tony Kanaan (Mo Nunn Hollywood Reynard-Honda) also cracked the 77-second barrier, while an impressive fifth fastest was PacWest's rookie Scott Dixon on 1m17.113s. Dixon's team mate Mauricio Gugelmin was three tenths adrift in seventh position.

Team Rahal's Max Papis made the biggest overnight gains as he slotted his Team Rahal Lola-Ford into sixth spot.

While the new Mexican circuit has generally been praised by the drivers, minor problems continue to pop up. The Saturday morning session was stopped for around 15 minutes when bricks built into a concrete design next to the edge of the track worked loose.

CART officials marked off the area exiting Turn Four to prevent cars from running wide over the loose bricks.