IndyCar – St. Petersburg Practice

st-peteThe IndyCar series returns to the streets of St. Petersburg this weekend, but this year it serves as the season opener. Even though the looming threat of the economy has cast a pall over the offseason activities of the series, the first race will still provide us 22 competitors (down from 26 last season). And while the series is down on cars from last season, the strength of the series is showing through.

IndyCar practice took place today and there were some pretty surprising results:

Pos Driver No Difference Best Time Best Speed Laps
1 Graham Rahal 2 –.—- 1:03.4078 102.196 24
2 Justin Wilson 19 .1803 1:03.5881 101.906 20
3 Dario Franchitti 10 .2929 1:03.7007 101.726 18
4 EJ Viso 13 .4078 1:03.8156 101.543 22
5 Tony Kanaan 11 .4376 1:03.8454 101.495 22
6 Ryan Briscoe 6 .4525 1:03.8603 101.471 23
7 Scott Dixon 9 .5993 1:04.0071 101.239 19
8 Will Power 3 .6773 1:04.0851 101.116 20
9 Vitor Meira 14 .7563 1:04.1641 100.991 20
10 Danica Patrick 7 .8699 1:04.2777 100.813 23
11 Darren Manning 23 .8742 1:04.2820 100.806 21
12 Mike Conway 24 .8963 1:04.3041 100.771 25
13 Alex Tagliani 34 1.1329 1:04.5407 100.402 22
14 Marco Andretti 26 1.1877 1:04.5955 100.317 21
15 Hideki Mutoh 27 1.2495 1:04.6573 100.221 17
16 Robert Doornbos 6 1.2933 1:04.7011 100.153 23
17 Mario Moraes 5 1.3673 1:04.7751 100.038 26
18 Raphael Matos 2 1.3890 1:04.7968 100.005 24
19 Dan Wheldon 4 1.5112 1:04.9190 99.817 8
20 Ryan Hunter-Reay 21 1.5804 1:04.9882 99.710 23
21 Ed Carpenter 20 2.6864 1:06.0942 98.042 22
22 Stanton Barrett 98 6.9124 1:10.3202 92.150 18

You have to go down the list a bit before you run across some of the usual suspects. This is a continued testament to the ability of the returning CCWS teams who spent all of their time off of ovals before the merger. Graham Rahal won this race last year as a rookie with Newman Haas Lanigan, and once again he stands at the top of the practice sheet.

Even more impressive is the 2nd quick time for Justin Wilson with the humble Dale Coyne operation. There is no discounting Justin’s talent, but the team isn’t well funded and his participation with the team was not announced until very late in the game.

Also impressing is E.J. Viso at 4th on the time chart. E.J. had a pretty rocky start to last season with multiple wrecks and miscues, but there is no overlooking his ability. Further, E.J. is part of the former Team Minardi USA headed by Kieth Wiggins. Look for E.J. to post some wins this year.

As always, practice sessions only count for so much. But the practice times are showing that Dario Frachitti has not lost a step during his 1 year hiatus in NASCAR. As good as Scott Dixon was last year, he will only be better with Dario as his teammate.

Qualifying will air on Versus at 5:00 pm est on Saturday

The race will air on Versus at 2:00-5:00 pm est on Sunday

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