Kanaan tops final practice

The 32-year-old Brazilian, who will start second on the grid for Sunday's race, lapped the 2.5 mile oval circuit in 39.971 seconds, although the Andretti-Green Racing driver did not think the time fully represented his speed as it came in traffic.

"When you're the fastest guy on the track, you can't say that your car isn't that good," said Kanaan. "But I got a good draft. I was trying to run in traffic as much as I could."

On a warm and humid day his British team-mate Dario Franchitti was second fastest - three tenths of a second down as he, like the rest, focused on finding a good race-set up and running in traffic.

AGR team boss Michael Andretti was a surprising third fastest while pole-sitter Helio Castroneves was fourth fastest for Penske.

American Jacques Lazier was the star of the session as he incredibly posted the fifth fastest time in his Playa del Racing Panoz.

Ganassi racer Scott Dixon was sixth quickest with last year's winner Sam Hornish Jr (Penske), Danica Patrick (AGR), Ryan Briscoe (Luzco Dragon) and Tomas Scheckter (Vision) completing the top ten.

Britain's Darren Manning was 12th fastest for Foyt Enterprises, while Dan Wheldon, who won this race in 2005, was a disappointing 13th, although he was not too concerned.

"You just need to do a systems check and make sure everything is OK from that standpoint," said Wheldon.

"You can't really make substantial changes from this point on. It's just a matter of fine-tuning what you've got."

Jamie O'Leary