Thursday, 6th March 2008

Team Penske takes over at Sebring from where Tony Kanaan and Andretti Green Racing left off.

Team Penske's Ryan Briscoe led the half-day Open Test at Sebring International Raceway on Wednesday, ahead of the 2008 IndyCar Series season which begins later on this month.

Tony Kanaan had set the pace on days 1 and 2, but on Wednesday it was the turn of the second group of runners to hit the track and Briscoe lowered the benchmark set by the Andretti Green Racing driver. Briscoe's quickest time was 52.7757 second effort, 0.0852 of a second up on Kanann's best lap from Tuesday.

"The track seemed to clean up really quickly during the afternoon and the rubber that the guys laid down the last couple of days is still there," Briscoe said. "It's just a bit tough here sometimes, because you're chasing the track conditions.

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"Overall, we're really happy with the work we got done today on the Team Penske car. We did a lot of setup work, just trying to build a database of tools we can work with when we go to St. Petersburg."

Castroneves meanwhile was second best on a 52.9853secs lap, while Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon came in third and third, with Buddy Rice fifth.

"For us to be on pace with two of the big three is quite good," Rice said. "We've had all winter to sit and think about what we need to do.

"We haven't done a road course since Detroit (in September) so I think we have a lot more things to go through and a lot more things to evaluate, but I think we're in good shape. It shows we were quick at Detroit, quick here and should be quick at St. Pete."

Of the rest Darren Manning rounded out the top six for AJ Foyt, with Panther Racing's Vitor Meira and Milka Duno seventh and eighth.

"Of course I wanted to be faster," said Duno, who improved her time throughout the session and posted her best time on the 48th of 50 laps in her first road course outing in an IndyCar Series car. "New car, new brakes, paddle shifting, a new seat. We are working to be faster and this was a good start. It wasn't perfect, but it was OK."

The final day of testing is scheduled for 9 am - 5 pm [local time] on March 6.


Testing times - Sebring (5 March):

1. Ryan Briscoe Team Penske 52.7757secs 64 laps
2. Helio Castroneves Team Penske 52.9853secs 57 laps
3. Dan Wheldon Target Chip Ganassi 53.4806secs 69 laps
4. Scott Dixon Target Chip Ganassi 53.4959secs 47 laps
5. Buddy Rice Dreyer & Reinbold 53.7294secs 65 laps
6. Darren Manning AJ Foyt 54.3847secs 25 laps
7. Vitor Meira Panther 54.4123secs 79 laps
8. Milka Duno Dreyer & Reinbold 56.4081secs 50 laps

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