INDYCAR: Tuesday Sebring Spring Training Report

IndyCar

INDYCAR: Tuesday Sebring Spring Training Report

Helio Castroneves ends the day fastest overall, leading a Team Penske 1-2-3.

Marshall Pruett | Posted March 06, 2012

PM UPDATE

Team Penske's Helio Castroneves ended his two-day test at Sebring in style, leading both the morning session and the cooler, overcast afternoon session in his Chevrolet-powered Dallara DW12.

Adding in his fast time from Monday morning the 36-year-old Brazilian went fastest in three of the four phases of the test, posting a 52.14 to close out the first half of the Spring Training event.

"Obviously it's a team effort," Castroneves told SPEED.com of the impressive form shown by the Penske program.

"Between myself, Will [Power]and Ryan [Briscoe], we're sharing a lot of information. One tries something different, and then the next day, we make sure everybody gets the same thing."

Power was reportedly more than a tenth up on Castroneves on his final lap, but had to settle for a 52.20-second run when a small fire in the engine bay broke out--the second in two days--which put an end to his run.

Will Power didn't have to play the role of Fireman, but did climb from a burning car for the second consecutive day. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

The Aussie pulled straight in to the pits with light smoke trailing his No. 12 car and was met by his crew who had buckets of water and extinguishers waiting to pit out the flames.

Briscoe sat fourth on the time charts but jumped to third on the final lap with a 52.20--just .0013 behind Power--to help secure the top 3 positions for The Captain.

Andretti Autosport's Ryan Hunter-Reay, who led Monday afternoon's session, took fourth in his Chevrolet-powered No. 28 entry with a 52.34-second lap.

Schmidt Hamilton Racing's Simon Pagenaud was once again the fastest Honda runner and felt encouraged by his 52.46-second lap, which was set while on a simulated race stint.

Dale Coyne Racing's Justin Wilson and James Jakes took sixth and seventh in their Honda-powered cars, with Wilson posting a 52.65 to Jakes' 52.82.

Andretti Autosport teammates Marco Andretti and James Hinchcliffe concluded the day in eighth and ninth, with Andretti running a 52.96-second lap to Hinchcliffe's 53.03, which wasn't quite what the Go Daddy driver expected.

"The time wasn't there, but we got a lot accomplished," Hinchcliffe told SPEED.com. "Learning what you can't do is a positive, which sounds crazy, but we learned what things don't work, so now we'll work on the other things to pull everything together to find the speed we're missing."

HVM Racing's Simona de Silvestro shook off the electrical issues that struck for the second day in a row to run 64 total laps on Tuesday, finishing out the 10-driver roster with a lap of 53.23 seconds.

The series now takes Wednesday off for media-related activities, with the Firestone Indy Lights series taking over the track for the day.

IndyCar testing concludes Thursday-Friday as the following teams are entered to run:

Group 2 (9 a.m.-noon and 1-5 p.m. March 8-9):

No. 4 JR Hildebrand (Panther Racing) - Chevrolet
No. 5 E.J. Viso (KV Racing Technology) - Chevrolet
No. 6 Katherine Legge (Lotus Dragon Racing) - Lotus
No. 7 Sebastien Bourdais (Lotus Dragon Racing) - Lotus
No. 8 Rubens Barrichello (KV Racing Technology) - Chevrolet
No. 9 Scott Dixon (Target Chip Ganassi Racing) - Honda
No. 10 Dario Franchitti (Target Chip Ganassi Racing) - Honda
No. 11 Tony Kanaan (KV Racing Technology) - Chevrolet
No. 14 Mike Conway (A.J. Foyt Racing) - Honda
No. 15 Takuma Sato (Rahal Letterman Lanigan) - Honda
No. 20 Ed Carpenter (Ed Carpenter Racing) - Chevrolet
No. 22 Oriol Servia (Lotus Dreyer & Reinbold Racing) - Lotus
No. 38 Graham Rahal (Service Central Chip Ganassi Racing) - Honda
No. 67 Josef Newgarden (Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing) - Honda
No. 77 Alex Tagliani (Team Barracuda - BHA) - Lotus
No. 83 Charlie Kimball (Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing) - Honda

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