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Saturday practice: Oriol on top again

An unusually eventful practice session ended with Patrick Racing's Oriol Servia once again topping the timing screens. The Spaniard overcame a bumpy trip through the Turn 1 grass to cut a lap half a second faster than he managed in Friday's provisional qualifying session.

The top five drivers were within 0.15secs, led by Servia's 1m20.623s effort. Team Rahal's Michel Jourdain was second fastest on 1m20.642s, and the Mexican was another to encounter drama. Halfway through the 75-minute session, Jourdain tapped the wall after a smoky spin, dislodging the rear wing of his Lola. He recovered to set his best time in the final five minutes.

Bruno Junqueira ran third (1m20.675s), followed by his Newman/Haas Racing team-mate Sebastien Bourdais on 1m20.732s. Darren Manning topped the charts for 15 minutes but his 1m20.795s lap wound up fifth best.

The three Canadians in the field ran sixth through eighth, with Alex Tagliani leading Patrick Carpentier and Paul Tracy. Carpentier spun at the final chicane and just tapped the inside wall with his left-side wheels. Tracy also had a slight impact with the wall just before the hairpin, which left his Forsythe Lola with a bent toe link.

"I wanted to go back out, but the team wanted to save tyres for the race," said Tracy, who was second fastest in provisional qualifying behind Servia. "I think I have a faster car than I had yesterday so we should be in good shape for qualifying this afternoon."

Rookie Ryan Hunter-Reay, coming off a career-best finish of third at Mid-Ohio, had the most significant incident in the session. The American lost control of his American Spirit Reynard at the same spot as Carpentier heading on to the pit straight, but instead of spinning around 180 degrees, Hunter-Reay corrected and when the rear end bit, it propelled the car hard into the outside wall. Hunter-Reay was uninjured, but his Reynard tub sustained damage when the nose was torn off in the impact.

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