Bourdais bounces back to front

The Frenchman clocked the fastest time of the weekend when he dropped below the 76 seconds mark with a time of 1:15.939, at an average of 124.252mph around the 2.621-mile road course.

However, the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing driver's final lap was barely 0.15 seconds quicker than that of his closest championship challenger, Robert Doornbos.

The Minardi Team USA driver, who has missed a podium finish only once this year, is likely to be a strong contender for pole position this afternoon.

Yesterday, Doornbos missed out on a likely provisional pole because his car had to have extra fuel added due to a pick-up problem.

Team Australia pairing Simon Pagenaud and Will Power were third and fifth quickest this morning, split by Neel Jani for PKV Racing.

Provisional pole-sitter Tristan Gommendy, though, ended this morning's 75-minute session in 16th.

Justin Wilson and Alex Tagliani were sixth and eight for RSPORTS, with the second Newman/Haas/Lanigan car of Graham Rahal between them. Rahal's fastest time, almost a second slower than Bourdais', unusually came on the ninth of his 21 laps.

If Forsythe Championship Racing showed little sign of improvement over yesterday's desultory form, Dale Coyne Racing by contrast appeared to have sorted out the handling traits that both drivers complained of on Friday. Nonetheless, Bruno Junqueira was some 1.5 seconds off Bourdais' fastest.

There were two red flags flown. Once was for Dan Clarke who had an off on his fifth lap and who was unable to return to action, the second was for Oriol Servia who harmlessly spun his Forsythe car into a gravel trap with 15 minutes left.

The Catalan returned to the track to set his top time with his final lap.

Pos  Driver               Team                       Time
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais   Newman/Haas/Lanigan        1:15.939
 2.  Robert Doornbos      Minardi Team USA           1:16.092 + 0.153
 3.  Simon Pagenaud       Team Australia             1:16.701 + 0.762
 4.  Neel Jani            PKV                        1:16.726 + 0.787
 5.  Will Power           Team Australia             1:16.779 + 0.840
 6.  Justin Wilson        RSPORTS                    1:16.874 + 0.935
 7.  Graham Rahal         Newman/Haas/Lanigan        1:16.902 + 0.963
 8.  Alex Tagliani        RSPORTS                    1:16.905 + 0.966
 9.  Paul Tracy           Forsythe Championship      1:17.081 + 1.142
10.  Oriol Servia         Forsythe Championship      1:17.395 + 1.456
11.  Bruno Junqueira      Dale Coyne                 1:17.463 + 1.524
12.  Jan Heylen           Conquest                   1:17.498 + 1.559
13.  Alex Figge           Pacific Coast Motorsports  1:17.499 + 1.560
14.  Katherine Legge      Dale Coyne                 1:17.758 + 1.819
15.  Tristan Gommendy     PKV                        1:17.893 + 1.954
16.  Ryan Dalziel         Pacific Coast Motorsports  1:18.246 + 2.307
17.  Dan Clarke           Minardi Team USA           1:18.932 + 2.993