Moraes on top as practice resumes
Mario Moraes was fastest for KV Racing as practice resumed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in preparation for the final two days of Indy 500 qualifying this weekend
After a pre-dawn storm that packed wind gusts of 70mph which did minor damage to some team equipment the weather cleared to partly cloudy conditions with temperatures in the mid-70s and light winds. There were no accidents during the six full hours of running.
Moraes took advantage of the good conditions to bolster KV Racing's hopes with a lap of 222.739mph early in the session that held up as the day's fastest, eclipsing the Penske and Ganassi cars that dominated Pole Day qualifying last weekend. Moraes put in 103 laps on the day, second only to Dale Coyne driver Justin Wilson's 120.
Team Penske's Ryan Briscoe was second-fastest overall at 222.406mph, ahead of his team-mate, pole winner Helio Castroneves, Ganassi's Scott Dixon, and Andretti Green's Tony Kanaan, who also put in some laps in team-mate Danica Patrick's car before lapping faster in his own back-up machine.
Rahal Letterman Racing's Oriol Servia, appearing on track for the first time this month in the team's #17 Dallara, was fastest of the yet-to-qualify
cars at 221.353, good for seventh overall.
Townsend Bell, also making his 2009 Indy debut today in KV Racing's #8, was next up in this group at 220.938mph. At the opposite end, rookie Nelson Philippe managed only a 205mph lap in HVM's rebuilt #00.
Ryan Hunter-Reay and Vision team-mate Ed Carpenter shared the former's #21T back-up car, as the team sought the already-qualified Carpenter's opinion of its struggling #21 chassis.
Vision reported that Carpenter affirmed Hunter-Reay's concerns about the car after posting a best lap of 217.785 in #21T, 1.5mph off his best lap of the day with his own #20, while Hunter-Reay set a best of 218.894.
Practice continues tomorrow. The final 11 places on the 33-car grid will be available in Saturday's qualifying session, with Sunday's Bump Day then providing opportunity for faster cars to bump out slower qualifiers.
Currently, Davey Hamilton the only one of Dreyer & Reinbold's four entries to have completed a qualifying run is the slowest qualifier at 221.956mph.
Pos Driver Team Time Speed 1. Mario Moraes KV 40.4061s 222.739mph 2. Ryan Briscoe Penske 40.4666s 222.406mph 3. Helio Castroneves Penske 40.4685s 222.395mph 4. Scott Dixon Ganassi 40.4724s 222.374mph 5. Tony Kanaan Andretti Green 40.5607s 221.890mph 6. Dario Franchitti Ganassi 40.6292s 221.516mph 7. Oriol Servia Rahal Letterman 40.6591s 221.353mph 8. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan 40.6667s 221.311mph 9. Marco Andretti Andretti Green 40.6868s 221.202mph 10. Townsend Bell KV 40.7355s 220.938mph 11. Vitor Meira Foyt 40.8256s 220.450mph 12. Justin Wilson Coyne 40.8368s 220.389mph 13. Raphael Matos Luczo Dragon 40.8369s 220.389mph 14. Hideki Mutoh Andretti Green 40.8636s 220.245mph 15. Dan Wheldon Panther 40.8642s 220.242mph 16. EJ Viso HVM 40.8933s 220.085mph 17. Will Power Penske 40.9571s 219.742mph 18. Alex Lloyd Schmidt/Ganassi 40.9741s 219.651mph 19. Danica Patrick Andretti Green 41.0178s 219.417mph 20. Ed Carpenter Vision 41.0421s 219.287mph 21. Alex Tagliani Conquest 41.0985s 218.986mph 22. Davey Hamilton Dreyer & Reinbold 41.1002s 218.977mph 23. Sarah Fisher Fisher 41.1020s 218.967mph 24. Ryan Hunter-Reay Vision 41.1157s 218.894mph 25. John Andretti Petty/Dreyer & Reinbold 41.1483s 218.721mph 26. Robert Doornbos Newman/Haas/Lanigan 41.2035s 218.428mph 27. Stanton Barrett 3G 41.2659s 218.098mph 28. Milka Duno Dreyer & Reinbold 41.2965s 217.936mph 29. Buddy Lazier Hemelgarn 41.4734s 217.007mph 30. Nelson Philippe HVM 43.7493s 205.718mph
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