Power ends Sebring test on top

The Australian was delighted to use up his final test miles in a positive manner before his home race at Surfers Paradise in four weeks' time. He said: "We tried a lot of stuff these last two days that is going to be relevant for Australia and [season finale] Mexico.

"I think we're going there with a strong car. To be honest, I think we've been strong at all the street circuits this year anyway - and now we've got even better. I think we can get pole like last year but then hopefully we can go on to complete the deal."

Teammate Simon Pagenaud concurred. "The set-up I've found has gone in a very different direction from Will's. I know it's going to make us very strong at Mexico City, and I think - I hope - it's going to work in Surfers too.

"If it doesn't, we can go back to Will's set-up, but the one I've found that improves the turn-in is the way we want to try."

Tristan Gommendy did an excellent job to get within 0.02 seconds of Power, though like Mario Dominguez (Pacific Coast Motorsports) in third, the PKV Racing driver was clearly going for a time at the end of the day when the track was at its quickest.

The surprise of the second day of the test, as per yesterday, was Dominguez's PCM team-mate Alex Figge, who today set the fastest time of the morning and whose top time kept him fifth quickest at day's end.

The American said: "All year we've been struggling with understeer, and if there's one thing I find difficult to deal with in a race car, it's understeer. So now we've got a much better front-end on the car and it's made a huge difference."

Paul Tracy took over from Oriol Servia in the No. 3 Forsythe car, but had few miles left to use in his test allocation, and was finished before lunch. Tom Brown, the team's technical director expressed himself "very happy" with Tracy's lap times.

"The morning was slower," said Brown, "and we weren't going for times so what he did out there was perfect. Kept his nose clean, tried out lots of things for Australia, and gave us good feedback."

Brown also expressed delight with Tracy's teammate for the final two races, David Martinez. "He's very, calm, mature and quick. He did so many laps for us today, and he seems to have kept himself very race fit.

"I think things are looking good for our final two races."

Like Tracy, Neel Jani of PKV and Bruno Junqueira of Dale Coyne Racing had few miles left to use today. Jani finished his this morning, while Junqueira spent long periods of inactivity in between testing set-ups for Surfers Paradise.

James Winslow was very happy to hack two seconds off his quickest time of yesterday, as he completed his second day of testing with Conquest Racing.

The Briton, who leads the Asian Formula Renault V6 Championship, looked a lot more at ease in the car, as he worked particularly hard on his braking.

"It's been a great experience," said Winslow. "I'm happy we cut our lap times, I'm happy that we got nearer to the pace-setters, and I'm happy all four corners stayed on the car!

"To be honest, I'm sure we could have gone quicker at the end, when the track was at its fastest, but by then I was struggling physically. I couldn't keep my neck up under braking - these cars are brutal."

Winslow, who has Australian backing, is planning to go down to Surfers Paradise for the race, and expressed an eagerness to move into Champ Cars in 2008.

Pos  Driver             Team                       Time
 1.  Will Power         Team Australia             51.51
 2.  Tristan Gommendy   PKV                        51.53
 3.  Mario Dominguez    Pacific Coast Motorsports  51.55
 4.  Simon Pagenaud     Team Australia             51.71
 5.  Alex Figge         Pacific Coast Motorsports  51.73
 6.  Paul Tracy         Forsythe                   51.79
 7.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan        51.82
 8.  David Martinez     Forsythe                   51.91
 9.  Neel Jani          PKV                        52.04
10.  Bruno Junqueira    Dale Coyne                 52.30
11.  Katherine Legge    Dale Coyne                 52.58
12.  James Winslow      Conquest                   53.65