INDYCAR: Power, Chevrolet Lead Barber P1

IndyCar

INDYCAR: Power, Chevrolet Lead Barber P1

Team Penske's Will Power opened the activities at Barber Motorsports Park Friday afternoon by posting the fastest lap, .212 seconds clear of Castroneves.

Marshall Pruett | Posted March 30, 2012

The Team Penske juggernaut rolled into Barber carrying speed and momentum from St. Pete. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

Team Penske's Will Power opened the activities at Barber Motorsports Park Friday afternoon by posting the fastest lap, .212 seconds clear of teammate and St. Petersburg winner Helio Castroneves.

The Aussie set the time right away--just five laps into the session--and appears ready to continue the form he displayed at the season-opening race last weekend.

Power's lap of 1:11.28, set just after the GRAND-AM Rolex Series qualified and put down Pirelli rubber, was just over one second off his lap record, a 1:10.13, set in qualifying in 2010.

With Castroneves following close behind, the Chevrolet 1-2 was complemented by a Honda 3-4, with Takuma Sato and rookie Josef Newgarden .27 and .29 off of Power, respectively.

Ruben Barrichello, getting his first taste of the Dallara DW12-Chevrolet on the 2.38-mile, 17-turn Barber circuit, ran fifth with a lap of 1:11.60.

Sebastien Bourdais was the fastest of the five Lotus-powered teams, earning 16th with a lap of 1:12.48, 1.19 seconds behind Power.

Light rain began to fall in the final 10 minutes of the session, followed by thunderstorms just after the one-hour session concluded, leaving teams to re-balance their cars this afternoon on a green track.

No major incidents were reported.

Rank, Driver , Diff., Best Lap
1 Will Power 0 1:11.2886 1:14.3525
2 Helio Castroneves 0.2124 1:11.5010
3 Takuma Sato 0.2722 1:11.5608
4 Josef Newgarden 0.2998 1:11.5884
5 Rubens Barrichello 0.3142 1:11.6028
6 Marco Andretti 0.3377 1:11.6263
7 Tony Kanaan 0.3914 1:11.6800
8 Simon Pagenaud 0.4129 1:11.7015
9 Dario Franchitti 0.4529 1:11.7415
10 Graham Rahal 0.6643 1:11.9529
11 James Hinchcliffe 0.7434 1:12.0320
12 JR Hildebrand 0.7678 1:12.0564
13 Scott Dixon 0.7940 1:12.0826
14 Mike Conway 0.9048 1:12.1934
15 Ryan Briscoe 0.9265 1:12.2151
16 Sebastien Bourdais 1.1932 1:12.4818
17 James Jakes 1.2132 1:12.5018
18 EJ Viso 1.2156 1:12.5042
19 Ryan Hunter-Reay 1.3351 1:12.6237
20 Simona de Silvestro 1.4502 1:12.7388
21 Charlie Kimball 1.8011 1:13.0897
22 Alex Tagliani 2.1860 1:13.4746
23 Oriol Servia 2.2074 1:13.4960
24 Justin Wilson 2.6148 1:13.9034
25 Ed Carpenter 3.2831 1:14.5717
26 Katherine Legge 5.0261 1:16.3147

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. He also contributes to Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett on Twitter.