Dario Franchitti

IRL

Ganassi Racing's Dario Franchitti, defending champion for the race here, turned the fastest lap in Friday's 1-hour practice session for the IndyCars at Infineon Raceway.  His lap of 1m18.2969s just beat Penske Racing's Will Power by just 41 thousandths of a second and FAZZT's Alex Tagliani.

Scott Dixon and Justin Wilson rounded out the top-5.

Marco Andretti, Graham Rahal, Ryan Briscoe, Dan Wheldon and Hideki Mutoh rounded out the top-10

Starting up front is always key on the undulating 2.303-mile road course in beautiful Sonoma, California where passing is always difficult, so qualifying up front on Saturday is on everyone’s mind.

The top 16 drivers were separated by just 1-second on Friday and with the track rubbering in more on Saturday one can expect the speeds to increase and the gap to narrow.

Will Power is still a bit careful when he drives through the fast and blind S-turn 3A where he had his bad accident last year that resulted in a broken back.

"I still look for any dust up ahead.  The warning light system is much better than last year, but you are so busy through there it takes full concentration and it's hard to take your eyes off the track to look for the flagman or lights."

Conquest Racing has flipped the numbers of its two IZOD IndyCar Series entries for this weekend's Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma.

Bertrand Baguette's RACB/Conquest Racing car will carry the No. 34 while Francesco Dracone's Halkin Jet/LaPasta.biz/Conquest car will carry the No. 36. Baguette is looking forward to the change this weekend which only involved changing the number decals on the car he has driven for most of the season.

"I prefer the No. 34," the Belgian rookie said. "I did all my karting with the No. 34 and even a few of my first single-seater (race cars) had 34. I actually wanted to run 34 this year, but Mario (Romancini) already had it."

While team owner Eric Bachelart hasn't decided what will happen for the rest of the year, Baguette is hopeful that he can put together a strong performance with the number to keep it.

"It's my preferred number and have always done well with it," he said. "I think the change is good and I hope that it is still a lucky number for me."

Another one-hour practice session is slated Saturday morning followed by PEAK Performance Pole Qualifying featuring the Firestone Fast Six. The Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma is scheduled for 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday.

Results

Rank	No	Name	Laps	Gap	Diff	Best Lap Time	Best Lap Speed
1	10	Dario Franchitti	12	--.----	--.----	1:18.2969	105.889 mph
2	12	Will Power	13	0.0041	0.0041	1:18.3011	105.884 mph
3	77	Alex Tagliani	19	0.2650	0.2691	1:18.5661	105.526 mph
4	9	Scott Dixon	12	0.0409	0.3100	1:18.6070	105.472 mph
5	22	Justin Wilson	14	0.0091	0.3191	1:18.6161	105.459 mph
6	26	Marco Andretti	17	0.0109	0.3300	1:18.6269	105.445 mph
7	02	Graham Rahal	19	0.0243	0.3543	1:18.6513	105.412 mph
8	6	Ryan Briscoe	14	0.2642	0.6185	1:18.9154	105.059 mph
9	4	Dan Wheldon	21	0.0054	0.6239	1:18.9209	105.052 mph
10	06	Hideki Mutoh	18	0.0342	0.6581	1:18.9551	105.007 mph
11	3	Helio Castroneves	12	0.0176	0.6757	1:18.9727	104.983 mph
12	2	Raphael Matos	13	0.0533	0.7290	1:19.0259	104.912 mph
13	24	JR Hildebrand	15	0.0125	0.7415	1:19.0385	104.896 mph
14	32	Mario Moraes	14	0.0491	0.7906	1:19.0875	104.831 mph
15	11	Tony Kanaan	3	0.0100	0.8006	1:19.0976	104.817 mph
16	37	Ryan Hunter-Reay	15	0.2068	1.0074	1:19.3044	104.544 mph
17	8	EJ Viso	14	0.1231	1.1305	1:19.4274	104.382 mph
18	34	Bertrand Baguette	21	0.0772	1.2077	1:19.5047	104.281 mph
19	14	Vitor Meira	25	0.1014	1.3091	1:19.6060	104.148 mph
20	5	Takuma Sato	21	0.0439	1.3530	1:19.6500	104.09 mph
21	19	Alex Lloyd	18	0.2331	1.5861	1:19.8831	103.787 mph
22	78	Simona de Silvestro	20	0.0967	1.6828	1:19.9797	103.661 mph
23	7	Danica Patrick	18	0.0148	1.6976	1:19.9946	103.642 mph
24	36	Francesco Dracone	23	2.5719	4.2695	1:22.5665	100.414 mph
25	18	Milka Duno	23	1.3644	5.6339	1:23.9308	98.781 mph