Wilson tops wet practice

The RSPORTS driver clocked a lap of 1:11.065 seconds on a wet track, beating Sebastien Bourdais who, like Wilson, chalked his fastest lap on his 15th run, but wound up 0.15 seconds off the fastest time.

Given that the rain has since started to fall much harder, Wilson's time from qualifying yesterday will be enough to earn him pole, and the only grid position that remains in question is second place.

The fastest driver from this afternoon's qualifying session will be second on the grid.

Should Wilson wind up fastest, then Robert Doornbos' time from yesterday will allow the Dutch driver to remain second.

However, if the Briton is not quickest then that second spot looks likely to be fought over by Bourdais and the PKV Racing entries of Neel Jani and Tristan Gommendy, as the pair ended this wet practice in an impressive third and fourth positions.

Graham Rahal was fifth fastest for Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, just ahead of Doornbos and the Team Australia pair of Will Power and Simon Pagenaud.

Series returnee Jan Heylen caused two red flags with spins as he comes to grips with the DP01-Cosworth.

But as in the dry, the Conquest Racing driver was around 1.2 seconds away from quickest time - enough to put him ahead of such as Alex Tagliani (RSPORTS) and the Forsythe Championship Racing pair of Paul Tracy and Oriol Servia.

Pos  Driver              Team                       Time
 1.  Justin Wilson       RSPORTS                    1:11.065
 2.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/ Haas/ Lanigan      1:11.210 + 0.145
 3.  Neel Jani           PKV Racing                 1:11.398 + 0.333
 4.  Tristan Gommendy    PKV Racing                 1:11.619 + 0.554
 5.  Graham Rahal        Newman/ Haas/ Lanigan      1:11.877 + 0.812
 6.  Robert Doornbos     Minardi Team USA           1:12.031 + 0.966
 7.  Will Power          Team Australia             1:12.136 + 1.071
 8.  Simon Pagenaud      Team Australia             1:12.350 + 1.285
 9.  Jan Heylen          Conquest Racing            1:12.375 + 1.310
10.  Alex Tagliani       RSPORTS                    1:12.515 + 1.450
11.  Dan Clarke          Minardi Team USA           1:12.542 + 1.477
12.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe Championship      1:12.564 + 1.499
13.  Oriol Servia        Forsythe Championship      1:12.634 + 1.569
14.  Bruno Junqueira     Dale Coyne Racing          1:12.809 + 1.744
15.  Katherine Legge     Dale Coyne Racing          1:13.083 + 2.018
16.  Alex Figge          Pacific Coast Motorsports  1:13.132 + 2.067
17.  Ryan Dalziel        Pacific Coast Motorsports  1:14.751 + 3.686