Power fastest on second day

The 2006 rookie of the year was followed by Graham Rahal and Neel Jani, who have not made a single Champ Car start between them.

The weather conditions were much better for the second day, and the dry running enabled the teams to learn a lot more about the new Panoz DP01 chassis.

"The fact that we understand the car and how to make it fast is the most important thing we got out of today," said Power. "But it is nice to be fastest."

Jani, who was also third quickest at the Sebring test last month, believes that there is still more to come from himself and his PKV crew.

"I'm impressed with how high the level of talent is here in Champ Car," he said. "It's good to know that we can run with the top guys and we are not too far off the pace.

"But we are not here to finish third, so we have a lot more to do."

2003 champion Paul Tracy finished the day with the 11th fastest time, and he was disappointed to be 1.5 seconds slower than Power.

"Nothing went right for us today and we are so far behind right now," he said. "Everybody is pretty frustrated, but we have to go to work on being ready for the first race."

Reigning champion Sebastien Bourdais was fourth quickest for Newman-Haas, while Bruno Junqueira completed the top five driving for Dale Coyne.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver               Team                        Time     Laps
 1.  Will Power           Team Australia              1:10.040  111
 2.  Graham Rahal         Newman/Haas Racing          1:10:079  151
 3.  Neel Jani            Red Bull PKV Racing         1:10:168  119
 4.  Sebastien Bourdais   Newman/Haas Racing          1:10:333  156
 5.  Bruno Junqueira      Dale Coyne Racing           1:10.560   87
 6.  Simon Pagenaud       Team Australia              1:10:776   91
 7.  Nelson Philippe      Conquest Racing             1:11:035  116
 8.  Justin Wilson        CDW/RuSPORT                 1:11:179  157
 9.  Robert Doornbos      Minardi Team USA            1:11:216  135
10.  Oriol Servia         RuSPORT                     1:11:257  191
11.  Paul Tracy           Forsythe                    1:11:591   79
12.  Katherine Legge      Dale Coyne Racing           1:11:607   93
13.  Ryan Dalziel         Pacific Coast Motorsports   1:11:658  118
14.  Alex Tagliani        Rocketsports Racing         1:12:161   98
15.  Alex Figge           Pacific Coast Motorsports   1:13:567  115

All Timing Unofficial