Friday pm practice: Penskes switch

Once again, the Penske pair was a half a second clear of their nearest competition, this time the Reynard-Toyota of Jimmy Vasser.

De Ferran is gunning for his second pole of the 2001 season and his second consecutive Mid-Ohio pole. After leading the first stint in last year's race, he finished second to an on-form Castroneves.

The defending CART champion said the Penske team's road course edge in 2001 is a result of the hard work the team put in last year.

"To be honest, we're where we are at because we have managed not to screw up," de Ferran said. "I say that jokingly, but I'm really not. We had a great car here last year, and we managed to not mess it up. In fact, we were able to take what we had and make it a little bit better.

"The kind of consistency the team shows at road courses is the result of work and development over a long period of time," he added. "We keep making small incremental gains that slowly add up over the course of 12 months."

De Ferran's Friday lap of 1m06.161s (122.882 mph) was about 0.8-sec slower than his own track record of 1m05.347s. But the Brazilian was uncertain whether his mark will be beaten on Saturday.

"It's tough to predict," he said. "I have to say the weather was really nice this afternoon, cooler than this morning. The track usually speeds up on Saturday, but it depends on if it gets hotter. But we're significantly down on straightline speed from last year because of the boost reduction (from 40 to 37 inches), though we've picked some up in the turns."

Castroneves was clearly the fastest man in Champ Cars on road racing venues in the latter half of 2000, and perhaps his most dominant victory of the year came at Mid-Ohio.

"The car is good so far, with a good set-up off the bat," remarked Helio. "This track is terrible if you don't have a good car. Mid-Ohio is a tough track without much run-off area, and you're always going faster than you think you are. It's great to have such competition within the team. It makes things more fun."

Third quickest Friday was Jimmy Vasser, who managed 1m06.788s in the Patrick Racing Reynard-Toyota.

"We saved our tyres, so I feel pretty good about where we're at," said Vasser. "Some guys bolt on new tyres to look good on the scoring sheet on Friday. But we're still a little off the Penskes. They're really hooked up, just like they were here last year. It's nice to be third, a good start to the weekend, but we can still improve."

Christian Fittipaldi was happy, having run third in the morning and fourth in the afternoon, while Bruno Junqueira improved to fifth before ending the day with his Lola-Toyota parked in a tyre barrier. Bryan Herta was sixth, edging the Mo Nunn Racing duo of Tony Kanaan and Alex Zanardi.

Local favourites Team Rahal struggled, with Kenny Brack 15th and Max Papis 24th (and next to last).

"We struggled with the car in the morning, but we made good progress in the afternoon," said championship leader Brack. "I think we have a top-five car but the time sheet doesn't show it. But I saw a lot of the exhaust of the Penske cars today. We're not to where those cars are right now, but I can see us improving on Saturday."