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Tracy tops Surfers warm-up

Forsythe Championship Racing appeared to continue their fightback following their Friday accidents as Paul Tracy and AJ Allmendinger set first and third fastest times in Sunday morning warm-up at Surfers Paradise

Tracy set a time of 1:34.847 with an average speed of 106.087mph around the 2.795-mile street circuit on the Gold Coast of Queensland, beating local hero Will Power by 0.2 seconds.

The Team Australia driver will start the race from pole position, directly ahead of Tracy, and alongside Sebastien Bourdais.

The Newman/Haas driver, who can wrap up the championship this weekend with a 14th-place finish, crashed heavily in qualifying yesterday, which has forced his team to switch to his back-up car.

Though he finished the warm-up in ninth this morning, this doesn't suggest that he's struggling with the back-up, but just hasn't dialled it to the nth degree.

Also, with times some three seconds slower this morning, and with an imperfect track surface due to dropped oil in one corner, everyone was taking it relatively cautiously, Bourdais more than most.

Dan Clarke and Nelson Philippe showed fine pace in the CTE Racing HVM cars, while Charles Zwolsman looked impressive in sixth.

Antonio Pizzonia scrubbed in the set of red-walled soft Bridgestones that he failed to use when he crashed his Rocketsports car before qualifying yesterday.

The limited mileage on this set could hand the Brazilian a slight advantage this afternoon as he attempts to make progress from the middle of the pack.

Katherine Legge, who has struggled all weekend on a circuit completely new to her, was an encouraging 12th fastest, just two tenths off PKV Racing teammate Oriol Servia.

Pos  Driver        Team                   Time
 1.  Tracy         Forsythe Championship  1:34.847
 2.  Power         Team Australia         1:35.042 + 0.195
 3.  Allmendinger  Forsythe Championship  1:35.425 + 0.578
 4.  Clarke        CTE - HVM              1:35.633 + 0.786
 5.  Philippe      CTE - HVM              1:35.937 + 1.090
 6.  Zwolsman      Mi-Jack Conquest       1:36.194 + 1.347
 7.  Tagliani      Team Australia         1:36.451 + 1.604
 8.  Junqueira     Newman/Haas            1:36.550 + 1.703
 9.  Bourdais      Newman/Haas            1:36.738 + 1.891
10.  Dominguez     Rocketsports           1:37.036 + 2.189
11.  Servia        PKV                    1:37.054 + 2.207
12.  Legge         PKV                    1:37.268 + 2.421
13.  Ranger        Mi-Jack Conquest       1:37.319 + 2.472
14.  Pizzonia      Rocketsports           1:37.700 + 2.853
15.  Wirth         Dale Coyne             1:37.903 + 3.056
16.  Briscoe       RuSPORT                1:37.983 + 3.136
17.  Heylen        Dale Coyne             1:39.069 + 4.222

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