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Power on top, Sato crashes at Motegi

IndyCar championship leader Will Power led the way in opening practice for the penultimate round of the series at Motegi, while there were disappointment for the home crowd as Takuma Sato became the first man to crash this weekend

Sato got just 15 minutes into the morning practice session before spinning into the Turn 1 wall - with a component failure suspected as the cause. He was unhurt in the incident but the car suffered significant rear end damage, forcing the KV Racing team to begin preparing Sato's back-up chassis for the rest of the day.

A long yellow was required to clean up Sato's debris, so the session was extended by 15 minutes to make up for the lost time - although soon after going green it was briefly interrupted again when Raphael Matos (De Ferran Dragon) brushed the Turn 4 wall.

There were no more incidents after that though, allowing Power to notch up a mammoth 53 laps. The Penske driver has not raced at Motegi before, and is keen to reassert his authority this weekend having seen his championship cushion dwindle to 17 points in the last two oval races. He was fastest for the majority of the session.

Helio Castroneves - whose lap tally was a more ordinary 21 - made it a Penske one-two, and led the way for a while before Power's 27.1908s lap put the Australian back on top in the final minute.

Dan Wheldon continued his recent strong form for Panther Racing with third place. The Briton is the team's only representative again this weekend as Kentucky star Ed Carpenter's part-time deal does not include the trip to Japan.

Andretti Autosport's Tony Kanaan was fourth ahead of Ganassi duo Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti, who dominated at Motegi last year.

Alex Tagliani had a good run for FAZZT to take seventh, with Andretti duo Ryan Hunter-Reay and 2008 Motegi winner Danica Patrick eighth and 10th, split by Penske's third driver Ryan Briscoe, whose 2009 title bid was ruined by a pitlane crash at this track.

While Sato's crash left him at the bottom of the timesheets, his countryman Hideki Mutoh took 14th for Newman/Haas, just ahead of Japanese-American returnee Roger Yasukawa, making his now annual Motegi appearance with Conquest in the car recently driven by Tomas Scheckter.

Pos  Driver               Team               Time      Gap
 1.  Will Power           Penske             27.1908s
 2.  Helio Castroneves    Penske             27.3587s  + 0.1679s
 3.  Dan Wheldon          Panther            27.3784s  + 0.1876s
 4.  Tony Kanaan          Andretti           27.5047s  + 0.1263s
 5.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi            27.5568s  + 0.3660s
 6.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi            27.6045s  + 0.4137s
 7.  Alex Tagliani        FAZZT              27.6285s  + 0.4377s
 8.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti           27.6338s  + 0.4430s
 9.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske             27.6410s  + 0.4502s
10.  Danica Patrick       Andretti           27.6420s  + 0.4512s
11.  Marco Andretti       Andretti           27.6445s  + 0.4537s
12.  Graham Rahal         Newman/Haas        27.7152s  + 0.5244s
13.  EJ Viso              KV                 27.7261s  + 0.5353s
14.  Hideki Mutoh         Newman/Haas        27.7763s  + 0.5875s
15.  Roger Yasukawa       Conquest           27.8131s  + 0.6223s
16.  Mario Moraes         KV                 27.8306s  + 0.6398s
17.  Paul Tracy           Dreyer & Reinbold  27.8641s  + 0.6733s
18.  Bertrand Baguette    Conquest           27.8754s  + 0.6846s
19.  Alex Lloyd           Dale Coyne         27.9637s  + 0.7729s
20.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM                28.0488s  + 0.8580s
21.  Vitor Meira          Foyt               28.0505s  + 0.8597s
22.  Justin Wilson        Dreyer & Reinbold  28.1216s  + 0.9308s
23.  Raphael Matos        De Ferran Dragon   28.2101s  + 1.0193s
24.  Milka Duno           Dale Coyne         28.7343s  + 1.5435s
25.  Takuma Sato          KV                 28.7702s  + 1.5794s

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