A strong start from Patrick and Andretti Green

While practice never directly pays anything, it can pay off in the long run - or at least that is the hope of Danica Patrick who led the second practice session at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan. Under cold and windy conditions, Danica bested the 18 car field with a time of 26.9858 seconds (202.979mph).

“I (and my dad) have a saying, ‘however you unload is kind of how you run,' and we unloaded a good car, it's been a pretty straightforward day really,” said Danica who appeared calm, relaxed and far from excited about her practice leading performance.

The second quickest driver was also a surprise as local hero, Kosuke Matsuura timed in just 0.067 seconds behind Danica and just ahead of defending race winner Helio Castroneves. In a reversal of their normal fortunes, Matsuura's Panther Racing teammate, Vitor Meira came back out after suffering a crash in the morning practice to post only the 16th best time as his team worked sorted out the spare car.

Following Castroneves on the chart was Tony Kanaan, Dan Wheldon and Marco Andretti, providing a time sheet very well mixed amongst the top teams. Andretti was particularly improved after having run well outside the top ten in the morning session.

Castroneves initially laughed and tried not to answer questions about Danica being faster than her teammates. He then allowed, “She's been doing a good job. The only thing I can say is that she has been learning with those teammates.”

This would be in contrast to the strained relationship Danica had with Buddy Rice at Rahal Letterman in 2005 and 2006, which likely resulted in far less shared information and probably caused them both to go a little slower.

Danica has run well at TRM before as she qualified second and finished fourth in 2005 and went from fourteenth to eighth in 2006 - both while driving for RLR.

She had no direct answer to questions as to why this track suited her well, merely laughing and saying, “It must be the sushi!”

Motegi Practice Times
Pos Driver Diff Best Time Best Speed

1 Danica Patrick (7) ... 26.9585 202.979
2 Kosuke Matsuura (55) 0.0675 27.0260 202.472
3 Helio Castroneves (3) 0.0911 27.0496 202.295
4 Tony Kanaan (11) 0.1343 27.0928 201.972
5 Dan Wheldon (10) 0.2054 27.1639 201.444
6 Marco Andretti (26) 0.2248 27.1833 201.300
7 Sam Hornish Jr (6) 0.2800 27.2385 200.892
8 Dario Franchitti (27) 0.2858 27.2443 200.849
9 Buddy Rice (15) 0.3850 27.3435 200.121
10 Scott Sharp (8) 0.4192 27.3777 199.871
11 Scott Dixon (9) 0.4298 27.3883 199.793
12 Tomas Scheckter (2) 0.4542 27.4127 199.616
13 Ed Carpenter (20) 0.5048 27.4633 199.248
14 AJ Foyt IV (22) 0.5082 27.4667 199.223
15 Sarah Fisher (5) 0.6122 27.5707 198.472
16 Vitor Meira (4T) 0.6719 27.6304 198.043
17 Darren Manning (14) 0.8621 27.8206 196.689
18 Jeff Simmons (17) 0.8651 27.8236 196.668

ORS / CAPSIS International