Practice: de Ferran sets the pace

De Ferran, who won here in 2000 when the race was a round of the CART championship, set his time in the morning, before a brief shower halted the session.

"We were able to confirm a lot of the things we learned when we tested here," said the Brazilian. "This afternoon, we ran our race set-up with heavier fuel loads to simulate the conditions we'll experience on Sunday."

Jaques Lazier was second fastest, just two thousandths of a second slower than de Ferran. Another former CART driver, Alex Barron was third, while Penske's Helio Castroneves was fourth.

Tomas Scheckter was once again the top rookie in fifth, while series returnee Sarah Fischer, who's standing in for Robbie Buhl, was 17th.

"The car will go anywhere I point it to go," she enthused. "It's a great feeling. We're shooting for the little things now. The car is extremely consistent, which makes it easy for me to be out for seven months and still jump in and go fast."

Practice was interrupted after John de Vries made contact with the wall on the exit of Turn 4. Although he was taken to the medical centre as a precaution he was perfectly fine. However, a far more serious incident befell Scott Sharp's chief mechanic Robert Perez. Perez received first and second degree burns after a fire erupted while he was pumping fuel from Sharp's race car. He received almost immediate treatment at the track's medical facility and has subsequently been released from care.