Will Power tops opening practice in Surfers
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| Will Power #8 leads thru one of the chicanes |
| Jim Haines/IRL |
On a bright sunny beautiful morning, Australian Will Power gave the local fans something to cheer about early by turning the fastest lap of 1m36.33391s Friday morning in opening practice for Sunday's Nikon Indy 300 on the streets of Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia. Fellow former Champ Car driver Justin Wilson was 2nd at 1m36.5607s.
Ganassi teammates Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon were 3rd and 4th while Tony Kanaan rounded out the top-5.
Power's KV Racing teammate Oriol Servia was eighth fastest despite missing the end of the session after hitting the tires at the first chicane and damaging his suspension.
Also in trouble were Rahal Letterman's Ryan Hunter-Reay, who tagged the wall early on and caused the weekend's first yellow, Helio Castroneves (who ran down an escape road), and Ed Carpenter who crashed his Vision Racing Dallara.
Top speed last year on Friday for the Champ Cars was 1m30.862s – over 5 seconds per lap faster than the IndyCars.
Results
|
Pos |
Driver Name | Best Time | Best Speed | Total Laps |
| 1 | Will Power (8) | 1:36.3391 | 104.444 | 21 |
| 2 | Justin Wilson (02) | 1:36.5607 | 104.204 | 21 |
| 3 | Dario Franchitti (10) | 1:36.9904 | 103.742 | 15 |
| 4 | Scott Dixon (9) | 1:37.0052 | 103.726 | 17 |
| 5 | Alex Tagliani (36) | 1:37.0625 | 103.665 | 14 |
| 6 | Tony Kanaan (11) | 1:37.0650 | 103.662 | 16 |
| 7 | Bruno Junqueira (18) | 1:37.3127 | 103.399 | 13 |
| 8 | Oriol Servia (5) | 1:37.4146 | 103.290 | 9 |
| 9 | Ryan Briscoe (6) | 1:37.5896 | 103.105 | 20 |
| 10 | Graham Rahal (06) | 1:37.6370 | 103.055 | 20 |
| 11 | Helio Castroneves (3) | 1:37.6514 | 103.040 | 18 |
| 12 | E.J. Viso (33) | 1:38.3860 | 102.271 | 20 |
| 13 | Mario Moraes (19) | 1:39.1186 | 101.515 | 19 |
| 14 | Ryan Hunter-Reay (17) | 1:39.1631 | 101.469 | 17 |
| 15 | Hideki Mutoh (27) | 1:39.4673 | 101.159 | 21 |
| 16 | Vitor Meira (14) | 1:39.7604 | 100.862 | 22 |
| 17 | A.J. Foyt IV (2) | 1:40.1178 | 100.502 | 28 |
| 18 | Marco Andretti (26) | 1:41.1604 | 99.466 | 24 |
| 19 | Buddy Rice (15) | 1:41.1624 | 99.464 | 29 |
| 20 | Dan Wheldon (4) | 1:42.0197 | 98.628 | 15 |
| 21 | Danica Patrick (7) | 1:42.5072 | 98.159 | 21 |
| 22 | Townsend Bell (23) | 1:42.6594 | 98.013 | 14 |
| 23 | Jaime Camara (34) | 1:42.8451 | 97.836 | 23 |
| 24 | Ed Carpenter (20) | 1:43.0083 | 97.681 | 19 |