Power leads KV one-two in practice
Will Power led a sweep of the Thursday practice timesheets for KV Racing Technologies team at the Rexall Edmonton Indy
The Australian posted a best time of 1:02.3404 to edge teammate Oriol Servia by a scant 0.0496 seconds, while Team Penske's Helio Castroneves was another 0.1465 seconds adrift in third spot.
"It was obviously a good day to used to the set-up of an Indy car," said Power who, like Servia, raced at the Edmonton City Centre Airport circuit in the Champ Car World Series. "It's much different than a Champ Car. The team's done a great job and we arrived with a reasonable set-up."
Servia credited the familiarity of the team and their drivers with the Edmonton circuit for the speed shown by KVRT, but cautioned about complacency.
"Coming here to a place we know, it feels good to be on top of the timesheets," he said. "But we need to keep pushing. The other guys are only on their first day here, and they're big teams with good drivers. I'm pretty sure they're going to be pushing pretty hard tomorrow.
Castroneves concurred with Servia.
"Our main goal today was to find out what the Team Penske car can do on this circuit," he said. "Now that we know, we'll used tomorrow to see how much we can push that limit. Overall, I think we had a good day."
The fact that Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe finished up fourth fastest ahead of former Edmonton Champ Car winner Justin Wilson (Newman/Haas/Lanigan) would seem to substantiate Castroneves' verdict about the team's first day at Edmonton.
Another driver who had a pretty good day was Paul Tracy. Driving in a third Vision Racing car prepared by Derrick Walker Racing in what, for now, is a one-off effort, the Canadian was credited with the eighth fastest time of the day despite never having turned a wheel in a Dallara-Honda IndyCar before the morning - when he was allotted a fifteen minutes shake-down test.
"It went as well as you could hope for," he said. "We hoped to come in and have the car run well and and we did that. Derrick Walker and his group did a great job. I haven't driven since Long Beach. Hopefully things will come back a little easier tomorrow and we can work on race set-up. But it's going to be tough. These guys have been driving all year."
The day went considerably less well for EJ Viso and Bruno Junqueira. Viso spun and backed into the Turn 1 wall in the first practice session, damaging the HVM Racing Dallara-Honda's gearbox. Although the team had a spare gearbox on hand, it was set up for an oval test planned next week and could not be changed-over in time for the second practice. The team expect to have their car ready for Viso for Friday's practice and qualifying.
Similarly, Junqueira spun across a kerb and damaged the tub of his Dale Coyne Racing entry in the second practice and did not return to action. However, the team will have their spare car ready for Friday.
Pos Driver Team Time 1. Will Power KV 1:02.3404 2. Oriol Servia KV 1:02.3900 + 0.0496 3. Helio Castroneves Penske 1:02.5365 + 0.1961 4. Ryan Briscoe Penske 1:02.5831 + 0.2427 5. Justin Wilson Newman/Haas/Lanigan 1:02.6220 + 0.2816 6. Scott Dixon Ganassi 1:02.6685 + 0.3281 7. Tony Kanaan Andretti Green 1:02.6806 + 0.3402 8. Paul Tracy Vision 1:02.6933 + 0.3529 9. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan 1:02.7528 + 0.4124 10. Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne 1:02.8760 + 0.5356 11. Dan Wheldon Ganassi 1:02.8800 + 0.5396 12. Ryan Hunter-Reay Rahal Letterman 1:02.9395 + 0.5991 13. Mario Moraes Dale Coyne 1:03.2586 + 0.9182 14. Hideki Mutoh Andretti Green 1:03.4577 + 1.1173 15. Marco Andretti Andretti Green 1:03.4684 + 1.1280 16. Mario Dominguez Pacific Coast 1:03.5862 + 1.2458 17. Vitor Meira Panther 1:03.8570 + 1.5166 18. Ed Carpenter Vision 1:03.9548 + 1.6144 19. Darren Manning Foyt 1:03.9866 + 1.6462 20. AJ Foyt IV Vision 1:04.1350 + 1.7946 21. Buddy Rice Dreyer & Reinbold 1:04.1646 + 1.8242 22. Enrique Bernoldi Conquest 1:04.2360 + 1.8956 23. Danica Patrick Andretti Green 1:04.3010 + 1.9606 24. Jaime Camara Conquest 1:04.8655 + 2.5251 25. Townsend Bell Dreyer & Reinbold 1:04.9073 + 2.5669 26. EJ Viso HVM 1:05.4394 + 3.0990 27. Marty Roth Roth 1:07.2098 + 4.8694
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