Castroneves Fastest in Practice

Castroneves topped the time sheets with a time of 1 minute 3.0836 seconds, fractionally ahead of rival Dario Franchitti on a day where the top eight drivers ran within a second of each other. Castroneves will now have the choice to run either first or last in qualifying.

As could be expected there were a number of off track excursions during the sessions - in the first session AJ Foyt, Sam Hornish, Roger Yasukawa, Tomas Scheckter and Ryan Briscoe all spun, with Briscoe's incident keeping him out of the afternoon sessions as repairs were effected to his car.

The drivers came to grips with the track later in the day, with only Ed Carpenter and Castroneves spinning in the afternoon. "I was so excited, I spun in my own drool!" he laughed after the session. "Every change we made to the car was good - out of the truck, the car was really fast.

"We're just trying to make sure we go smooth, so we're doing okay. Tomorrow is another day, but the track is really fun."

"I'm really happy to be back racing through the streets," Franchitti noted. "We stepped over the boundary from having a car that understeered to having one that oversteered a bit, but we definitely made it faster throughout the day so I'm very happy about that."

Tony Kanaan had an unusual way of preparing for the race: "It was hard the first three laps because I told my guys to give me new brakes and rain tires, so I could have the worst conditions I could have so I would go slow, because I was so excited! It's been really fun - it was good to turn right again."

Pos Driver              Time      Ses Laps