Team Penske dominated on practice day Friday for this weekend’s Rexall Edmonton Indy.
Helio Castroneves finished first, hitting 115.405 m/ph on his final lap in practice at the 14-turn airport-road course at the City Centre Airport.
Teammate Ryan Briscoe was second at 114.595.
“It’s not over,” said Castroneves. “We need to keep it up for qualifying.”
Toronto’s Paul Tracy was 10th in the 23-car field. He ran among the leaders for most of the session but dropped back after making some late adjustments.
“We made a shock and spring change on the last run with a new set of tires and it put an imbalance on the car,” he said. ”We’ll just go back on it and figure what we have to do for qualifying.”
Alex Tagliani of Lachenaie Que., was 17th. His No. 34 Conquest car struggled all day with oversteer.
“We were all over the place,” he said. “It’s very frustrating.”
The practice went from bad to worse for Dan Wheldon. The English racer spun out into the grass four times in the morning practice session.
Seconds into in the afternoon stint, his No. 4 Panther car stepped out, slammed nose first into the concrete barrier, and rolled back onto the track only to get T-boned by an onrushing Danica Patrick.
Both were OK.
It was a hot day: 32C with a track temperature peaking at 44C.
