Dan Wheldon bested Sam Hornish, Jr. in the first practice session of the 2007 season. Circling the 1.5mile oval at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 25.0870 seconds, Wheldon was just 0.0622 seconds ahead of Hornish, with Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon and Vitor Meira rounding out the top five.

Coming into 2007, one of the main questions in the IndyCar Series is the field's ability to break up the Penske and Ganassi monopoly at the top of the superspeedway speed charts. At this point, they are still solidly in command, but it appears that Andretti Green and Panther are ready to at least make the red cars work for the 2007 title.

Andretti Green put two cars in the top six, with Kanaan third and Franchitti sixth. Panther's Vitor Meira was fifth, a good result for a team that is traditionally conservative in early practice sessions. Of the drivers that have moved around for the 2007 season, Scott Sharp timed in the best at seventh for his new Rahal Letterman Racing team.

The new Dreyer and Reinbold Racing drivers, Buddy Rice and Sarah Fisher were 11th and 12th fastest, which for a team that was usually hoping to avoid qualifying last is a good showing at this point. Fisher never got totally comfortable in the session, fighting a problem with her helmet that made in car communication to her team difficult to the team to understand - thus slowing their ability to make changes.

The IndyCar Series brightest young media stars, Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti placed their Andretti Green cars in just 10th and 13th. Considering their teammates Kanaan and Franchitti were 3rd and 6th, it appears AGR is again splitting set-ups amongst drivers, a plan they've used in the past to great success.

There were no incidents during the session, and the recently formed Curb Agajanian Beck Motorsports team was able to get up to speed, though they were just 19th of the 20 cars. To no one's surprise, Marty Roth was the slowest in a field spread by less than one second.

IndyCar Series Practice Times:
Pos Driver Diff Best Time Best Speed

1 Dan Wheldon (10) ... 25.0970 213.014
2 Sam Hornish Jr (6) 0.0622 25.1592 212.487
3 Tony Kanaan (11) 0.1600 25.2570 211.664
4 Scott Dixon (9) 0.1624 25.2594 211.644
5 Vitor Meira (4) 0.1696 25.2666 211.584
6 Dario Franchitti (27) 0.1884 25.2854 211.426
7 Scott Sharp (8) 0.2313 25.3283 211.068
8 Helio Castroneves (3) 0.2427 25.3397 210.973
9 Ed Carpenter (20) 0.2664 25.3634 210.776
10 Marco Andretti (26) 0.2996 25.3966 210.501
11 Buddy Rice (15) 0.3276 25.4246 210.269
12 Sarah Fisher (5) 0.4008 25.4978 209.665
13 Danica Patrick (7) 0.4227 25.5197 209.485
14 A J Foyt IV (22) 0.4306 25.5276 209.420
15 Jeff Simmons (17) 0.4451 25.5421 209.302
16 Kosuke Matsuura (55) 0.5404 25.6374 208.523
17 Darren Manning (14) 0.5538 25.6508 208.415
18 Tomas Scheckter (2) 0.5796 25.6766 208.205
19 Alex Barron (98) 0.7029 25.7999 207.210
20 Marty Roth (25) 0.9767 26.0737 205.034.

ORS / CAPSIS International