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Briscoe leads Watkins Glen practice

Ryan Briscoe led team-mate Helio Castroneves in a Penske one-two after a frenetic end to Friday practice for the Watkins Glen IndyCar round

For most of the hour Ganassi's Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon had led the way, with the Penske drivers keeping a relatively low profile.

But in the final ten minutes a flurry of rapid flying laps saw constant place changing among the frontrunners, with all three of Penske's entries - Castroneves, Briscoe and Will Power - appearing on top, Dixon briefly nudging back ahead, and Dreyer & Reinbold's Justin Wilson and Panther's Dan Wheldon also fighting in the top three.

Briscoe eventually emerged in first place with a 1m31.4142s lap, just 0.0831 seconds ahead of Castroneves.

Dixon ended up third, 0.2s off the pace, ahead of the impressive Wheldon and 2009 winner Wilson. Power and Franchitti were pushed back to sixth and seventh.

De Ferran Dragon's Raphael Matos showed strongly in eighth ahead of Tony Kanaan in the top Andretti Autosport car. The latter was, along with Fazzt's Alex Tagliani, one of two drivers to require a yellow after problems on track necessitated a tow back to the pits.

Mario Moraes completed the top ten for KV. Further back, Paul Tracy was 16th in his first session with Dreyer & Reinbold, while Adam Carroll's IndyCar career got off to a quiet start with 23rd for AFS/Andretti.

Pos  Driver               Team               Time        Gap
 1.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske             1m31.4142s
 2.  Helio Castroneves    Penske             1m31.4974s  + 0.0831s
 3.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi            1m31.6781s  + 0.2638s
 4.  Dan Wheldon          Panther            1m31.7830s  + 0.3687s
 5.  Justin Wilson        Dreyer & Reinbold  1m31.8627s  + 0.4485s
 6.  Will Power           Penske             1m31.9317s  + 0.5174s
 7.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi            1m31.9895s  + 0.5753s
 8.  Raphael Matos        De Ferran Dragon   1m32.1616s  + 0.7474s
 9.  Tony Kanaan          Andretti           1m32.1877s  + 0.7735s
10.  Mario Moraes         KV                 1m32.2569s  + 0.8426s
11.  Marco Andretti       Andretti           1m32.4116s  + 0.9974s
12.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti           1m33.0287s  + 1.6144s
13.  Hideki Mutoh         Newman/Haas        1m33.0661s  + 1.6518s
14.  EJ Viso              KV                 1m33.1804s  + 1.7662s
15.  Mario Romancini      Conquest           1m33.2247s  + 1.8104s
16.  Paul Tracy           Dreyer & Reinbold  1m33.2985s  + 1.8843s
17.  Danica Patrick       Andretti           1m33.3267s  + 1.9124s
18.  Takuma Sato          KV                 1m33.3399s  + 1.9256s
19.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM                1m33.5173s  + 2.1031s
20.  Alex Lloyd           Dale Coyne         1m33.6884s  + 2.2741s
21.  Alex Tagliani        Fazzt              1m34.2046s  + 2.7903s
22.  Vitor Meira          Foyt               1m34.2437s  + 2.8295s
23.  Adam Carroll         AFS/Andretti       1m34.4028s  + 2.9885s
24.  Bertrand Baguette    Conquest           1m35.7741s  + 4.3599s
25.  Milka Duno           Dale Coyne         1m37.2840s  + 5.8697s

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