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Wilson fastest in morning practice

Justin Wilson topped the timesheets and held off Sebastien Bourdais and Graham Rahal in Saturday morning practice for the Grand Prix of Edmonton

 The RSPORTS driver was the only man to break the 120mph average speed barrier as he lapped the 1.973-mile airport course in 58.931 seconds, to head the Newman/Haas/Lanigan pair by 0.28 seconds (Bourdais) and 0.4 seconds respectively.
 
However, it was not an easy session for the Briton, who spun three times. But he did better than his RSPORTS teammate Alex Tagliani, who struck the wall at Turn 8 on only his sixth lap and took no further part in the 75-minute session.
 
Will Power and Simon Pagenaud took fourth and sixth respectively, split by Forsythe Championship Racing's Paul Tracy who was trying to make up for a torrid Friday when major electrical problems had hampered his attempts to set a respectable time.
 
Jan Heylen continued to impress for Conquest Racing with an excellent eighth place, ahead of championship leader Robert Doornbos of Minardi Team USA, who was some 0.9 seconds slower than Wilson, and just 0.2 seconds up on teammate Dan Clarke.
 
The most serious red flag incident came at the end, and actually curtailed the session by 10 minutes, as Katherine Legge had a big accident at Turn 8. Such was the damage to the Dale Coyne Racing car, it looks unlikely she will make it into qualifying.
 
Ryan Dalziel was an excellent 12th fastest for Pacific Coast Motorsports, 1.1 seconds off Wilson despite neither he nor the team having raced here before.
 
Tristan Gommendy is to have another MRI scan following yesterday's accident, but the PKV Racing driver bravely completed 21 laps, winding up 0.8 seconds off teammate Neel Jani.

Should the Frenchman be unable to race tomorrow, his place will be taken by Mario Dominguez, who is here to pilot one of the Minardi F1x2 two-seater cars.

Pos  Driver              Team                 Time
 1.  Justin Wilson       RSPORTS              58.931
 2.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas/Lanigan  59.214  + 0.283
 3.  Graham Rahal        Newman/Haas/Lanigan  59.331  + 0.400
 4.  Will Power          Team Australia       59.356  + 0.425
 5.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe             59.362  + 0.431
 6.  Simon Pagenaud      Team Australia       59.436  + 0.505
 7.  Neel Jani           PKV Racing           59.576  + 0.645
 8.  Jan Heylen          Conquest Racing      59.849  + 0.918
 9.  Robert Doornbos     Minardi Team USA     59.881  + 0.950
10.  Bruno Junqueira     Dale Coyne Racing    59.925  + 0.994
11.  Oriol Servia        Forsythe             59.941  + 1.010
12.  Ryan Dalziel        Pacific Coast        60.074  + 1.143
13.  Dan Clarke          Minardi Team USA     60.077  + 1.146
14.  Katherine Legge     Dale Coyne Racing    60.343  + 1.412
15.  Tristan Gommendy    PKV Racing           60.352  + 1.421
16.  Alex Figge          Pacific Coast        61.444  + 2.513
17.  Alex Tagliani       RSPORTS              62.279  + 3.348

Previous article Bourdais on provisional Edmonton pole
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