Power tops Friday practice on the Milwaukee Mile

Will Power

With his first oval win under his belt, Penske Racing's Will Power may become just as dominant a figure on the IndyCar ovals as he is on the road courses. Friday's IndyCar practice session ended early on the Milwaukee Mile after Vitor Meira hit the wall exiting Turn 4 but that did not matter as Power was atop the timesheets most of the session anyway. Ganassi Racing's Dario Franchitti was 2nd quick and Power teammate Helio Castroneves was third.

Scott Dixon and Oriol Servia rounded out the top-5.

QUOTES

WILL POWER (No. 12 Verizon Team Penske, fastest of the day): "The Verizon car felt really good today. We just did a full-tank run at the end of practice to see what the car was like over a stint and we made no changes. The car feels really good." (About racing at Milwaukee): "This is the oval that I've been to the most, and it's a very fun place to drive. It can be a hard place to pass in the race, but if you have a good car it's a great place."

Helio And Dario

DARIO FRANCHITTI: (No. 10 Downy, second-fastest): "We changed the car significantly from the test here at Milwaukee and it has been better for us. I think the track has lost some grip since the two previous years I have been here, especially on the black asphalt. It was good to have time to test here so we could see what we were working with. It was a good start today and hopefully we can keep that up over the weekend. The racing is very close here and competition is tough."

HELIO CASTRONEVES (No. 3 Guidepoint Systems Team Penske, third-fastest): "So far so good with the Guidepoint Systems Team Penske car. The test we did here really helped us and gave us a good place to start. Today was just the first practice so we still need to get with our teammates and figure out what we need to do to improve. Hopefully we can continue this performance tomorrow and have a solid qualifying result."

ORIOL SERVIA (No. 2 Telemundo Newman/Haas Racing): "It seems that we are right where we thought we would be after the test. We just seem to be a little bit behind the front, front guys like Mr. (Will) Power and the Ganassi cars but we are very close and just need to make a couple of good decisions. If that happens we have a chance to put the blue Telemundo car up with them. It's great to have the amount of practice we have here. It good to come to an oval where we can actually try different things on the car and have real practice time and not just half-an-hour, then qualify and race. It's good for us since we haven't done a ton of testing. Tomorrow the plan is to try to get closer to those guys."

MARCO ANDRETTI (No. 26 Team Venom Energy, sixth-fastest): "Today's practice session was productive for the Venom car. The racecar is pretty good and I think we'll be strong on Sunday. We just have to find a bit more in the qualifying car and we can be a pole contender tomorrow."

RYAN BRISCOE (No. 6 Transitions Adaptive Lenses Team Penske): "We still have a bit of work to do. The Transitions Team Penske car definitely looks good out there and we were able to do a lot of race preparation work in practice, but we still need to find a better balance on the set-up. We'll get there and continue to improve tomorrow for sure."

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE (No. 06 Sprott Newman/Haas Racing): "The session was good. Obviously I haven't been here since Indy Lights in 2009 and have never been here in an Indy car. I was one of three drivers who didn't test here. We just spent time getting up to speed on this track. We had a couple of little issues that held us back a little bit in the middle part there but we got the car sorted in the end. Oriol's pace shows what we're capable of as a team. I know there is two-tenths (of a second) by just going to bed tonight and sleeping on it and getting up tomorrow with some information to go off of. Considering we didn't run here in the test, I am really happy with the car and really happy with where we are. We will just chip away at it and hopefully we will put the Sprott car up there in qualifying. When you look at the schedule at Texas compared to the schedule here, if I was going to miss a test at one track based on the schedule, this is the one to do it at based on the amount of practice time here. We're taking full advantage of that. These short ovals are a tricky thing to get used to. Obviously running around by yourself is one thing and running around in traffic is something completely different and it takes some getting used to. We're going to have to do that at some point and get a feel for the racing. The first order is qualifying and to get the car in a good place for the start on Sunday."

ED CARPENTER (No. 67 Direct Supply Sarah Fisher Racing): "It was a disappointing start to the weekend, definitely not where we wanted to be on the speed charts, especially after testing here. We fixed some things from the test, and the car is more consistent now, but now we're just not getting it to respond. We've got some good ideas; we tried a lot of things in that session, but we just weren't able to improve it. It gets frustrating, but I'm confident with the group that we have and as hard as everyone is working, we'll get the Direct Supply car going faster for the rest of the weekend."

Alex Tagliani bemoans practice cut short by crash

ALEX TAGLIANI (No. 77 Bowers & Wilkins/Schmidt Pelfrey Racing): "Something broke on the left rear, so we'll have to look at the data and see what happened. The car has virtually no damage except for a little scratch. We didn't touch anything. We should be alright."

VITOR MEIRA (No. 14 ABC Supply Co./A.J. Foyt Racing): "I was trying hard and it stepped out on me. I'm sure the ABC Supply/A.J. Foyt Racing crew will put the car together better than it was and we'll go race."

E.J. VISO (No. 59 PDVSA – KV Racing Technology – Lotus, ninth-fastest): "We had a limited amount of practice time today because of an electronic problem. We will continue to work our way through our program tomorrow and I'm curious to see how some of the changes will affect the car. I am sure that once we have been through our worksheet we will have a good conclusion to set up the car in the right direction for the race."

RYAN HUNTER-REAY (No. 28 Team GoDaddy.com): "Today, we really wanted to work on qualifying, but we just didn't get the track space we needed. Unfortunately, we didn't put a lap in on our second set of tires. But, we'll hold that in our pocket until tomorrow. The GoDaddy.com car felt good driving around there. It was tight quarters, but it felt good."

MIKE CONWAY (No. 27 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda): "Today was OK. We were just working through a lot of changes and trying to get the DHL/Sun Drop car as comfortable as possible. I think at the end there, on the new set of tires, we got it pretty good. We just needed a clear lap to really see what we can do. But, I think we've got a good direction with the balance and that's the important thing for now."

DANICA PATRICK (No. 7 Team GoDaddy): "I think we had a pretty solid practice session today for the GoDaddy.com car. We put down some laps and tried a few different things. We do know what we need to do to make the car better, so we have a direction. We still have two practice sessions tomorrow to fine-tune things, so I believe qualifying will be good."

JR HILDEBRAND (No. 4 National Guard Panther Racing): "The National Guard guys worked really hard to just to get the car back out on the race track. So it was good to be able to get back out on track and we had a pretty decent first run and then decided to cut our losses with the lack of time on track and just go out and do some heavy fuel runs. Our time isn't very representative of how quick we can go although we felt OK about it considering we didn't run at all. We'll take what we did today and compare it to what we did at the test and try to make it a little bit better for tomorrow."

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