Friday practice: Mo Nunn one-two

Zanardi and Kanaan traded fast times until the latter finally emerged on top with a 210.340-mph (34.624s) lap. Zanardi was the only other man to break the 35-second barrier, but his 208.134 mph effort was a full 0.367s slower than Kanaan's best effort.

The practice session was scheduled for 0830 BST and finally got under way at 1425. The Nunn drivers went fast early and stayed at the top of the timing screens throughout the session, seemingly turning up the wick every time another driver threatened to go faster. Patrick Carpentier wound up third fastest on 206.540 mph, closely followed by Kenny Brack and Bruno Junqueira. Helio Castroneves, Alex Tagliani and Dario Franchitti were the last drivers to lap the 2-mile tri-oval within a second of the flying Kanaan.

"We knew we were onto something when we went out and we were first and second right away," Kanaan said. "Alex and I have been working together all year and we worked well again today. We were able to take different directions with the set-up, and when we come into the pits, we talk. We've been able to work that way pretty well, especially on the ovals.

"The lack of track time hasn't hurt much," Kanaan added. "As a driver, you always want more laps. But when you have a good car, learning a new track is easy. The more you run, the more confidence you have to go quicker. Having a lot of sets of tyres actually helped us a lot."

Some of Zanardi's best races in 2001 have come on medium length ovals, and like the other drivers, he was effusive in his praise for the EuroSpeedway oval.

"It's a lot of fun," he said. "You can really take the car to the limit here in the turns. The wing package we're running here really helps. The lack of banking reminds me of really fast corners on a road course. You just challenge yourself lap after lap to improve a little bit. You can actually drive the car more than you do on regular superspeedways where you are more or less a passenger if the car is doing the job."

Carpentier continued his late-season form and was consistently the biggest threat to the Mo Nunn teammates. The Canadian was also pleased with the non-Handford wing package CART has stipulated fot EuroSpeedway.

"I think it's going to be a good race," Carpentier said. "We ran full tanks at the end and I diced with Helio Castroneves. I felt we could pass each other back and forth although I was running too short a gear. The width of the track will make it easy to pull some passes on people and I think it's going to be exciting."

"The wing package is really good," Kanaan agreed. "You can really get close and pass people, the car doesn't feel light and you don't get scared in the corners. As drivers, we prefer to feel the car in the corner, and that's what we lose with the Handford wing. It's a pretty good compromise ­ the best one we've come up with so far."

Despite showing so much speed in practice, Kanaan and Zanardi will have their work cut out on race day. They'll start 10th and 22nd respectively, courtesy of CART's decision to base the grid on championship standings.

On that basis, Brack, who will start from the front row alongside CART championship leader Gil de Ferran, looks like a good bet on Saturday.

"I thought we had a pretty good car today, especially since we didn't get much time on the track," said Brack, who has scored all three of his race wins on ovals this year.

De Ferran was 20th fastest on 200.462 mph, some 5 mph slower than team mate Castroneves.

"I didn't get a good lap at the end ­ otherwise I think we would have been in the bottom half of the top ten," stated de Ferran. "We made progress and we'll keep working in the morning warm-up."

No one spun or crashed during the two-hour session, though Christian Fitipaldi lost track time and had to run his spare car when his primary car lost a gearbox. Scott Dixon was the only driver who didn't turn a lap. The PacWest rookie complained before the session of severe stomach cramps and was unable to run.

For full practice times click here.