----It took a little while for IndyCar's second practice session to gather momentum at Barber Motorsports Park on Friday, but once a new layer of rubber was put down after rain showers fell on P1, Australia's Will Power needed just two laps to set the fastest lap of the hour-long session. The 2010 Barber pole sitter posted a 1:12.836, just slightly off the 1:12.750 he ran to lead P1. Scott Dixon Jumped to P2 in the final minute of the session, pushing Penske's Ryan Briscoe down to third.
Power was the only driver to dip into the 1:12's for the second straight session, but Dixon's 1:13.027 was a scant .190 behind. Briscoe was .088 behind the Kiwi with a lap of 1:13.116, forming an Australia-New Zealand-Australia top 3. "The Verizon car was good today,” said Power. “This track is very fast and the car is very sensitive to changes. We were trying a couple different things with our set-up and we actually made some pretty significant changes. The No. 12 car was reasonably quick throughout the day so we should be in good shape for qualifying tomorrow."
Briscoe was also satisfied with his car, despite executing a quick, harmless spin during the session. "I think we've unloaded a good car here at Barber this weekend,” said Briscoe. “Team Penske did some good work and preparation from our pre-season test here. We didn't do a lot of running today, but we know the Penske Truck Rental car is good, now we'll just work on making it better for tomorrow. "
Scotland's Dario Franchitti set a 1:13.241 which was good enough for fourth, while Brazil's Helio Castroneves completed the top 5 with a 1:13.254. "Today was certainly a lot better than the open test here," said Franchitti. "Although we are closer to the front, we are still struggling and it doesn't feel that great. Judging on everyone else's time, I think that several drivers are feeling uncomfortable. We will look at it overnight and the team will hopefully come up with some magic and we will see what we got for tomorrow."
Graham Rahal improved from P19 in the first session to run sixth in P2 with a 1:13.298, making it a Penske 1/3/5 and Ganassi 2/4/6 for the session. Rahal's teammate, Charlie Kimball, fell down the time sheets to P21 after running 10th in the first session.
Newman/Haas continues to look strong with Oriol Servia placing seventh with a lap of 1:13.364 and James Hinchcliffe, Friday's fastest rookie, running ninth with a 1:13.424. The young Canadian says he's satisfied with his efforts on Friday. "For the first day on the job as an Indy car driver getting a top-10 in practice for the Sprott car is pretty good," said Hinchcliffe. "I think there is a little bit more time in it but it's just so competitive. I sit here and think 'Man, I wish we could be a couple of spots higher' and then I look at the names of the guys who are a couple of spots higher and think 'No wait, I shouldn't be anywhere near this.' The racer in me wants a little bit more but realistically I think the Sprott team had a really good first day. Thank you to the team for all of the hard work today."
Andretti Autosport's Ryan Hunter-Reay used the dying minutes of the session to move to eighth, running a 1:13.374 to top his teammates, and ended the day feeling cautiously optimistic about their chances in qualifying.
"It was an up-and-down day with the rain," said RHR. "It kind of knocked us out of our rhythm a little bit. But, we're eighth and within reach of the top five, certainly, so we'll go to work tonight. The DHL/Sun Drop car is definitely a lot better than it was last year, so that is a big positive. The gap is only going to close tomorrow; all the competition is going to get tighter, so we're going to have to make some improvements tonight."
Danica Patrick ran a 1:13.792 to grab P13, while Marco Andretti (P17) and Mike Conway (P20) were well off the pace. "I think we're OK, overall," said Conway. "We just went the wrong direction a little bit in the second practice, so we didn't get much time out of the car, but we'll be alright. We'll revert some changes, see what the other guys learned and be ready to go in the morning."
With many teams focusing on perfecting their setups for Sunday's race during Friday's second and final session, the bulk of P2 was not spent looking for speed, but with a late caution giving teams a final opportunity to post a fast time, Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti spoiled the 1-2-3 Team Penske had going before E.J. Viso brought out the yellow with his crash in Turn 1.
Viso went off at high speed, backing his KV Racing-Lotus car into the tires with just under 10 minutes left in the session, causing extensive damage. Like Viso's three accidents at St. Petersburg, the Venezuelan driver walked away from the crash unharmed. Despite the crash, Viso posted a promising 1:13.792.
KV Racing-Lotus had mixed fortunes, with Takuma Sato leading the three-car effort in 10th with a 1:13.447, followed by Viso in 12th and Tony Kanaan, who spun during the session and ran only 10 laps, last in P26 with a 1:14.616.
"Today we struggled a lot," said Kanaan. "The first session was cut short because of the rain, which didn't help. For the second session we tired something I really didn't like and we just ran out of time to make the necessary adjustments."
Rafa Matos impressed in his second outing with AFS Racing, taking P18 with a lap of 1:14.056 for the low-budget effort. The separation between Hinchcliffe as the top rookie in ninth and the next rookie, James Jakes in P19, was considerable.
Jakes' 1:14.084 led fellow rookies Kimball (P21), Sebastian Saavedra in P22 with a 1:14.389, Simon Pagenaud in P23 with a 1:14.443, JR Hildebrand in P24 with a 1:14.515, and also led his Dale Coyne Racing teammate Sebastien Bourdais who ran 25th with a 1:15.907.
Pagenaud reduced his gap to Will Power from 2.5 seconds in P1 to 1.6 seconds in P2, making steady improvement now with 46 total laps of IZOD IndyCar experience to draw from.