Helio Castroneves nudged Penske teammate, Will Power, off the top of the testing time sheets on the second and final day at Barber Motorsports Park, Alabama.
Castroneves ran 71 laps on the second day with a best of 1:11.943 – significantly lowering the bar from the opening day. The Brazilian only held 0.02 of-a-second advantage over Power; however the highly motivated Australian may still be comfortable with the 63 lap day he had.
Scott Dixon (3rd) was the first Ganassi car on the list, followed by the final Penske of Ryan Briscoe (4th). If nothing else, this was another clear warning shot to the rest of the field of Penske’s power (sorry) on the road courses.
Oriol Servia improved to 5th on day two with a 1:12.359 during a 73 lap session in his Newman-Haas machine. Although the Spaniard finished some four-tenths off of Castroneves’ pace, he did hold a one-tenth gap over Takuma Sato (6th, KV Racing), James Hinchcliffe (7th, Newman-Haas) and Marco Andretti (8th, Andretti-Autosport). All three completed very busy programmes.
Dreyer and Reinbold’s Justin Wilson did not improve on the second day, dropping to 9th; however the Sheffield man did run long. Andrett0-Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay rounded-up the top-ten.
Dario Franchitti struggled again on day two, this time only completing 29 laps. The Scot registered the 11th quickest time, just ahead of Alex Tagliani’s Sam Schmidt Motorsport entry.
Danica Patrick rose to 13th on the second day thanks to a best tour of 1:12.963, as she added 50 laps to her roster. Graham Rahal also improved during the final session, although still ended the day 14th, some 1.03 seconds slower than Castroneves.
Neither EJ Viso or Mike Conway went faster than their opening day times, but while Viso logged a busy Tuesday, Conway was only able to manage six laps following an accident in turn 14.
Vitor Meira (17th) and Simona de Silvestro (18th) also advanced ahead of Sebastien Bourdais (19th) who could not better his Monday time, although the trio did not fall shy of laps. Charlie Kimball’s best of 1:13.335 was an improvement in time, however that did not stop the Anglo-American driver from falling to 20th – Kimball still ran an impressive 65 laps.
The mysterious James Jakes improved to 21st in the final session taking him ahead of Conquest’s Sebastian Saavedra (22nd), while Dreyer and Reinbold’s Ana Beatriz rose to 23rd.
JR Hildebrand fell to the bottom of the sheets, but did not run due to accident damaged incurred the previous day.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Helio Castroneves Penske 1m11.9434s 2. Will Power Penske 1m11.9636s + 0.0202s 3. Scott Dixon Ganassi 1m12.2815s + 0.3381s 4. Ryan Briscoe Penske 1m12.2954s + 0.3520s 5. Oriol Servia Newman/Haas 1m12.3594s + 0.4160s 6. Takuma Sato KV 1m12.4742s + 0.5308s 7. James Hinchcliffe Newman/Haas 1m12.5200s + 0.5766s 8. Marco Andretti Andretti 1m12.5255s + 0.5821s 9. Justin Wilson Dreyer & Reinbold 1m12.6791s + 0.7357s 10. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti 1m12.7749s + 0.8315s 11. Dario Franchitti Ganassi 1m12.8447s + 0.9013s 12. Alex Tagliani Schmidt 1m12.8533s + 0.9099s 13. Danica Patrick Andretti 1m12.9638s + 1.0204s 14. Graham Rahal Ganassi 1m12.9804s + 1.0370s 15. EJ Viso KV 1m13.0170s + 1.0736s 16. Mike Conway Andretti 1m13.0338s + 1.0904s 17. Vitor Meira Foyt 1m13.1151s + 1.1717s 18. Simona de Silvestro HVM 1m13.2671s + 1.3237s 19. Sebastien Bourdais Coyne 1m13.2904s + 1.3470s 20. Charlie Kimball Ganassi 1m13.3351s + 1.3917s 21. James Jakes Coyne 1m13.4323s + 1.4889s 22. Sebastian Saavedra Conquest 1m13.6503s + 1.7069s 23. Ana Beatriz Dreyer & Reinbold 1m13.9431s + 1.9997s 24. JR Hildebrand Panther 1m14.5534s + 2.6100s
