Castroneves tops final practice day
Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves moved to the head of the order on the final day of practice before qualifying for this year's centenary race
The Brazilian set a benchmark time of 39.3682s at 228.611mph in his Penske Dallara, as he edged out the consistently impressive Alex Tagliani (Sam Schmidt Motorsports) to lead the way on Friday.
"Qualifying tomorrow will be very tight," said Castroneves, who has started from pole for the past two years at Indy. "I can see that my team-mates will be strong ones, and there are other guys doing fast times out there, too.
"It will be interesting to see what happens in the Fast Nine. I think we will see speeds in the 228mph range tomorrow. It is going to be similar weather as today, but if it is a little bit humid, we may lose a little bit of power. I think everybody has something more."
Tagliani reckons he can find some more speed for the pole fight, but suspects he will get pushed back by the other Penske and Ganassi drivers come qualifying.
"We have a couple of things left. I think we were conservative this afternoon," he said. "We made some changes on the car without pushing the limits aerodynamically.
"I think it's going be very difficult to do a 228.3 mph, but it will have to be up there for a one-lap go. It's all about how consistent you can be and what's your draw.
"We feel that we are strong, but on the charts, there are a lot of cars that are strong. It's very difficult to have a good read. We ran very few laps this week, and we tried to run by ourselves to evaluate the right gearing and right downforce and make the right call on ride heights and all of that.
"I think we can go to bed tonight feeling we have a strong car, but the Ganassis and Penskes look tough. Hopefully when we pull everything out that we think we can, we'll be right there with them."
Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe were third and fourth for Ganassi and Penske respectively, while Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver Bertrand Baguette's fifth place was one of several eye-catching results for one-off entrants and smaller teams.
Sarah Fisher Racing continued its very strong form as Ed Carpenter took sixth, and 2005 Indy winner Dan Wheldon got Bryan Herta Autosport into the top 10.
Saturday's qualifying will initially set positions 10 to 24 on the grid, with the fastest nine cars then going into a pole shoot-out. The rest of the field will be decided on Sunday's Bump Day.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Helio Castroneves Penske 39.3682s 2. Alex Tagliani Sam Schmidt 39.4172s + 0.0490s 3. Scott Dixon Ganassi 39.4424s + 0.0742s 4. Ryan Briscoe Penske 39.4686s + 0.1004s 5. Bertrand Baguette Rahal Letterman Lanigan 39.4688s + 0.1006s 6. Ed Carpenter Sarah Fisher 39.4707s + 0.1025s 7. Will Power Penske 39.4810s + 0.1128s 8. Townsend Bell Sam Schmidt 39.4864s + 0.1182s 9. Oriol Servia Newman/Haas 39.5465s + 0.1783s 10. Dan Wheldon Herta 39.5669s + 0.1987s 11. Dario Franchitti Ganassi 39.5722s + 0.2040s 12. Takuma Sato KV 39.6382s + 0.2700s 13. Vitor Meira Foyt 39.6487s + 0.2805s 14. JR Hildebrand Panther 39.6582s + 0.2900s 15. Marco Andretti Andretti 39.6737s + 0.3055s 16. James Hinchcliffe Newman/Haas 39.6743s + 0.3061s 17. Graham Rahal Ganassi 39.6842s + 0.3160s 18. Charlie Kimball Ganassi 39.7374s + 0.3692s 19. Buddy Rice Panther 39.7465s + 0.3813s 20. Justin Wilson Dreyer & Reinbold 39.8010s + 0.4328s 21. Alex Lloyd Dale Coyne 39.8024s + 0.4342s 22. Danica Patrick Andretti 39.8212s + 0.4530s 23. Paul Tracy Dreyer & Reinbold 39.8238s + 0.4556s 24. Davey Hamilton Dreyer & Reinbold 39.8707s + 0.5025s 25. Tony Kanaan KV 39.8747s + 0.5065s 26. Ho-Pin Tung Schmidt/Dragon 39.9106s + 0.5424s 27. Pippa Mann Conquest 39.9234s + 0.5552s 28. EJ Viso KV 39.9280s + 0.5598s 29. Bruno Junqueira Foyt 39.9298s + 0.5616s 30. Jay Howard Rahal/Schmidt 39.9361s + 0.5679s 31. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti 39.9637s + 0.5955s 32. Tomas Scheckter KV/SH 39.9749s + 0.6067s 33. John Andretti Petty/Andretti 40.0159s + 0.6477s 34. Ana Beatriz Dreyer & Reinbold 40.0259s + 0.6577s 35. Raphael Matos AFS 40.1106s + 0.7424s 36. Mike Conway Andretti 40.2577s + 0.8895s 37. James Jakes Dale Coyne 40.2871s + 0.9189s 38. Sebastian Saavedra Conquest 40.3721s + 1.0039s 39. Scott Speed Dragon 40.4411s + 1.0729s
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