Dixon tops delayed Kentucky practice

The half hour rookie practice, two hours of full field practice, the qualifying session and the 45-minute night practice scheduled for Friday all had to be cancelled after heavy overnight rain caused moisture to seep through the track surface.

Huge efforts by the track officials saw the problem resolved in time for today, only for further rain to cause an additional delay this afternoon.

A 75-minute session eventually took place at 4.15pm local time, giving the teams their first opportunity to try the reintroduced aerodynamic options and the new push to pass system that the Indy Racing League hopes will improve the quality of racing from this weekend. Practice hinted that there will be more wheel to wheel action, but recent oval events had also seen competitive action in practice before the races proved processional.

Given the lack of mileage and the rule changes, it was no surprise that the track was very busy throughout the session.

It was KV Racing's Mario Moraes who settled at the top of the timesheets for most of the afternoon, but he was usurped by first Helio Castroneves (Penske), then Dixon in the final quarter of an hour.

Moraes held on to third, ahead of Panther's Dan Wheldon and Penske's Ryan Briscoe.

Tony Kanaan was the best of the Andretti Green cars in sixth place, while noteworthy results further back included Ed Carpenter's encouraging eighth for Vision Racing and 11th place for returning owner/driver Sarah Fisher.

The cancellation of qualifying meant that the starting line-up was formed by entrant points - putting practice pacesetter Dixon on pole ahead of his Ganassi team-mate Dario Franchitti and Penske duo Briscoe and Castroneves.

Pos  Driver             Team                 Time      Gap
 1.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              24.2807s
 2.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               24.2956s  + 0.0149s
 3.  Mario Moraes       KV                   24.3017s  + 0.0210s
 4.  Dan Wheldon        Panther              24.3036s  + 0.0229s
 5.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               24.3342s  + 0.0535s
 6.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       24.3760s  + 0.0953s
 7.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi              24.3953s  + 0.1146s
 8.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               24.3974s  + 0.1167s
 9.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       24.4033s  + 0.1226s
10.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       24.4480s  + 0.1673s
11.  Sarah Fisher       Sarah Fisher         24.4646s  + 0.1839s
12.  Will Power         Penske               24.4882s  + 0.2075s
13.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  24.5173s  + 0.2366s
14.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Foyt                 24.5319s  + 0.2512s
15.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       24.5491s  + 0.2684s
16.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan  24.6309s  + 0.3502s
17.  Tomas Scheckter    Dreyer & Reinbold    24.6486s  + 0.3679s
18.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold    24.6796s  + 0.3989s
19.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                24.6941s  + 0.4134s
20.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold    24.7103s  + 0.4296s
21.  EJ Viso            HVM                  24.7325s  + 0.4518s
22.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon         24.8158s  + 0.5351s
23.  Jaques Lazier      3G                   25.0645s  + 0.7838s