Servia fastest in Saturday practice
It took a few trips down escape roads, tripping over kerbs and dodging traffic, but Oriol Servia reasserted himself at the top of the timing screens in Saturday morning's practice session at Surfers Paradise
The Catalan driver, subbing for the financially troubled Tristan Gommendy at PKV Racing, stopped the clocks at 1:31.225, an average speed of 110.299 mph around the 2.795-mile street course.
Local hero Will Power threw everything he had at his rival with his final flyer, but the Team Australia pilot came up a frustrating 0.004 seconds short.
Meanwhile Justin Wilson, who had languished mid-table for most of the session, launched a spectacular effort in the last minute to wind up just a few hundredths shy of the men who beat his RuSPORT car to the front row yesterday.
Sebastien Bourdais was 0.33 seconds off Servia, but after having his brakes changed this morning looks a likely pole challenger come final qualifying, the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team having done a superb job to rebuild his wreck from yesterday.
As in yesterday morning's practice, Mario Dominguez made a superb effort for Pacific Coast Motorsports to clock fifth fastest, ahead of the second Team Australia machine of Simon Pagenaud.
The 2006 Atlantic champion was fastest of the rookies, but Graham Rahal in the second Newman/Haas/Lanigan machine was ninth, just 0.15 behind.
In fact, the rookies that excelled in qualifying yesterday - Neel Jani (PKV) and Robert Doornbos (Minardi Team USA) - slipped backwards this morning to 12th and 16th respectively, each comprehensively outperformed by their more experienced teammates.
Dan Clarke in the second Minardi car got up to eighth, overcoming his hampered running yesterday when he suffered transmission problems.
Paul Tracy was only 11th fastest this morning, but given that his fourth fastest time yesterday was set on blacks, and unlike many of his fellow competitors, he thus has two sets of red-walled 'soft' tyres to use, he is expected to be a challenger for a top-four grid slot.
Pos Driver Team Time 1. Oriol Servia PKV Racing 1:31.225 2. Will Power Team Australia 1:31.229 + 0.004 3. Justin Wilson RuSPORT 1:31.308 + 0.083 4. S. Bourdais Newman/Haas/Lanigan 1:31.531 + 0.306 5. Mario Dominguez Pacific Coast 1:31.949 + 0.724 6. Simon Pagenaud Team Australia 1:32.288 + 1.063 7. Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne Racing 1:32.291 + 1.066 8. Dan Clarke Minardi Team USA 1:32.380 + 1.155 9. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan 1:32.415 + 1.190 10. Alex Tagliani Rocketsports Racing 1:32.632 + 1.407 11. Paul Tracy Forsythe Championship 1:32.759 + 1.534 12. Neel Jani PKV Racing 1:33.069 + 1.844 13. Katherine Legge Dale Coyne Racing 1:33.272 + 2.047 14. Nelson Philippe Conquest Racing 1:33.319 + 2.094 15. Alex Figge Pacific Coast 1:33.519 + 2.294 16. Robert Doornbos Minardi Team USA 1:33.789 + 2.564 17. David Martinez Forsythe Championship 1:34.652 + 3.427
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