Franchitti goes fastest then crashes

The Ganassi driver, who was also fastest in Friday's opening session, beat HVM's impressive EJ Viso to first by just 0.0369 seconds, but then understeered into the tyres at Turn 6. Damage to Franchitti's Dallara-Honda appeared to be minimal.

Will Power quickly acclimatised to Penske's new #12 car, which is being run by Penske's Grand Am personnel, and set the third-fastest time. Although allocated to run in group two of the split session, he was allowed to shake the car down with two laps at the start of group one's half-hour, and then lapped within 0.0878s of Franchitti's benchmark time later on.

Franchitti's team-mate Scott Dixon was fastest in group one and fourth overall, ahead of Justin Wilson, who escaped a couple of trips down escape roads in Dale Coyne's car.

Helio Castroneves showed no rustiness on his return to the track after nearly six months focusing on his tax evasion trial. The Penske driver was allowed to run in both sessions, and was second for most of the group one segment. He eventually ended up seventh, behind Graham Rahal (Newman/Haas/Lanigan).

Mike Conway was the best of the rookies in eighth for Dreyer & Reinbold, ahead of Andretti Green's Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick - the latter showing her best form of 2009 so far.

Their team-mate Hideki Mutoh faces a race against time to get ready for qualifying after spinning into the inside wall on the exit of Turn 9 and doing substantial damage to both ends of his car.

Pos  Driver             Team                 Time              Gap
 1.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi              1m10.2789s
 2.  EJ Viso            HVM                  1m10.3158s  + 0.0369s
 3.  Will Power         Penske               1m10.3667s  + 0.0878s
 4.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              1m10.5889s  + 0.3100s
 5.  Justin Wilson      Dale Coyne           1m10.5897s  + 0.3108s
 6.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  1m10.6381s  + 0.3592s
 7.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               1m10.6763s  + 0.3974s
 8.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold    1m10.9066s  + 0.6277s
 9.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       1m10.9846s  + 0.7057s
10.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       1m11.0542s  + 0.7753s
11.  Dan Wheldon        Panther              1m11.1232s  + 0.8443s
12.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon         1m11.1797s  + 0.9008s
13.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       1m11.2015s  + 0.9226s
14.  Darren Manning     Dreyer & Reinbold    1m11.3388s  + 1.0599s
15.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan  1m11.3767s  + 1.0978s
16.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               1m11.4604s  + 1.1815s
17.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Vision               1m11.5848s  + 1.3059s
18.  Mario Moraes       KV                   1m11.6394s  + 1.3605s
19.  Vitor Meira        Foyt                 1m11.6590s  + 1.3801s
20.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       1m11.7303s  + 1.4514s
21.  Alex Tagliani      Conquest             1m11.8993s  + 1.6204s
22.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               1m12.1573s  + 1.8784s
23.  Stanton Barrett    3G                   1m14.4918s  + 4.2129s