Bourdais leads French trio in practice

The Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing driver set his quickest time on the seventh of 17 laps with a best of 1:17.339.

This equates to an average speed of 122.003mph around the 2.621-mile circuit, which resembles a cross between Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit and the old Osterreichring in the Styrian hills.

With his final flyer, Simon Pagenaud nailed second fastest time for Team Australia to put himself within a quarter of a second of his compatriot, while Tristan Gommendy impressed everyone by setting third fastest within just 11 laps in his PKV Racing entry.

Gommendy's PKV teammate Neel Jani was less than two tenths of a second slower, but the pair were separated by Justin Wilson of RSPORTS and Team Minardi USA's Robert Doornbos.

Last week's winner in Cleveland Paul Tracy should have been in the top three, but running wide into a left-hander lost him half a second on his final lap, which nonetheless remained his fastest tour of the circuit.

Conquest Racing's Jan Heylen was fastest of the four drivers - Oriol Servia, Bruno Junqueira and Katherine Legge are the others - who had not tested at Mont-Tremblant, setting 12th fastest time, 1.6 sec off Bourdais.

Session times:

Pos  Driver            Team                   Time     
 1.  S.Bourdais        Newman/Haas/Lanigan    1:17.339 
 2.  Simon Pagenaud    Team Australia         +  0.206 
 3.  Tristan Gommendy  PKV Racing             +  0.408 
 4.  Justin Wilson     RSPORTS                +  0.470  
 5.  Robert Doornbos   Minardi Team USA       +  0.501 
 6.  Neel Jani         PKV Racing             +  0.599 
 7.  Graham Rahal      Newman/Haas/Lanigan    +  0.667 
 8.  Will Power        Team Australia         +  0.695 
 9.  Dan Clarke        Minardi Team USA       +  0.721 
10.  Paul Tracy        Forsythe Championship  +  0.771 
11.  Alex Tagliani     RSPORTS                +  0.789 
12.  Jan Heylen        Conquest Racing        +  1.607 
13.  Oriol Servia      Forsythe Championship  +  1.760
14.  Bruno Junqueira   Dale Coyne Racing      +  1.876 
15.  Ryan Dalziel      Pacific Coast          +  2.299 
16.  Katherine Legge   Dale Coyne Racing      +  2.884 
17.  Alex Figge        Pacific Coast          +  2.893