Heylen tops Assen warm-up

The Belgian lapped the 2.83-mile road course at Assen in 1:20.609, to record an average speed of 126.388 mph, and was in the top five throughout the session, edging out Sebastien Bourdais by 0.079 of a second.

Perhaps ominously for the rest of the field, Sebastien Bourdais did a 15-lap stint, appearing to fine-tune his fuel consumption mileage while turning consistent lap times that kept him a top four runner throughout the session.

Simon Pagenaud's fine form continued with third fastest time, 0.22 seconds off Heylen, while Neel Jani of PKV Racing, who will start fourth, was happier with his car's handling in the high-speed corners and also with his projected fuel consumption figures, which appear to point to a three-stop race.

Ryan Dalziel gave Pacific Coast Motorsports a welcome fillip in what has been a slightly disappointing European tour for the first-year Champ Car team, recording sixth fastest time.

Both Paul Tracy and Justin Wilson suffered gearbox problems. The Forsythe Championship Racing driver had seventh gear where he should have had fifth, and vice-versa, but he was eventually able to get out and record seven laps.

However, RuSPORT's British ace was unable to complete a full lap. It transpired that a gearbox hose had split, possibly a legacy of being chafed on the broken floor from last week's accident in free practice in Zolder.

Pos  Driver             Team                       Time
 1.  Jan Heylen         Conquest Racing            1:20.609
 2.  S.Bourdais         Newman/Haas/Lanigan        1:20.688 + 0.079
 3.  Simon Pagenaud     Team Australia             1:20.908 + 0.299
 4.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan        1:21.044 + 0.435
 5.  Neel Jani          PKV Racing                 1:21.365 + 0.756
 6.  Ryan Dalziel       Pacific Coast Motorsports  1:21.449 + 0.840
 7.  Bruno Junqueira    Dale Coyne Racing          1:21.484 + 0.875
 8.  Tristan Gommendy   PKV Racing                 1:21.570 + 0.961
 9.  Will Power         Team Australia             1:21.574 + 0.965
10.  Alex Tagliani      Rocketsports Racing        1:21.710 + 1.101
11.  Oriol Servià       Forsythe Championship      1:21.753 + 1.144
12.  Robert Doornbos    Minardi Team USA           1:21.795 + 1.186
13.  Dan Clarke         Minardi Team USA           1:21.802 + 1.193
14.  Katherine Legge    Dale Coyne Racing          1:21.877 + 1.268
15.  Alex Figge         Pacific Coast Motorsports  1:22.022 + 1.413
16.  Paul Tracy         Forsythe Championship      1:22.286 + 1.677