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
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