"The car was definitely much better this afternoon, but I still think there is a little ways to go to making it better," Rahal commented, "Certainly, we could have been quicker but, with the incident with Will Power, it kind of ruined the tyres. Plus we didn't run the alternate tyres so, realistically, if you compare apples to apples, we're only a tenth-and-a-half off of Justin's best time on the blacks."
Best of the newcomers was Enrique Bernoldi, who took the lead Conquest car to sixth place overnight, ahead of Montagny, who narrowly bested Forsythe Pettit team-mate Paul Tracy for seventh.
"I was pushing hard," Bernoldi admitted, "I had a few misfortunes with the traffic in both stints, but I was pushing hard and the car was running well. It's different compared to the Dallara but, as I got more used to the car, I also got more familiar with the track. I'm happy and I think tomorrow we can improve a lot still.”
Tracy, in perhaps his only outing of the season as his dispute with team owner Gerry Forsythe rumbles on, managed to get the better of Will Power, who faded from a top three position early in the day to take a disappointing ninth on the provisional grid, only just keeping rookie Ernesto Viso at bay.
“This was a bad session for me,” Power accepted, “I was unable to get a lap and then, on my best lap, which was still not that great, I got stuck behind traffic. We need to go back and take a look at a couple of issues we have with braking and, hopefully, we can move the car further up the grid tomorrow.”
Viso did not feature on the timesheets at the mid-point of the half-hour session, but made rapid progress up the order once the HVM team got him out on track. Team-mate Nelson Philippe was not so lucky, however, and failed to register a time.
“We had a few issues, and we couldn't use both of our sets of tyres," the Venezuelan reported, "We are starting to work in the right direction, and I'm sure for tomorrow's qualifying session we are going to be quicker, but we just need to work a little harder.”
