Helio Castroneves continued to impress on the road course at Homestead-Miami Speedway, leading the final day of IRL IndyCar® Series road course Open Testing source: paddocktalk.com Castroneves, who led the opening day of testing on the 2.21-mile road course on March 2, recorded a lap of 1 minute, 10.5683 seconds, 112.742 mph, in his No. 3 Marlboro Team Penske Dallara/Honda/Firestone. Castroneves was slightly faster than 2003 IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon who posted the second-fastest lap, 1:10.6675, 112.584 mph, in the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Panoz/Honda/Firestone. "Awesome days," Castroneves said. "Sam (Hornish Jr.) and I were working together, the whole team was working together and that makes us very strong. It's good. It's our first time with the Honda engine. We're trying to understand the new rules - no traction control. Everything seems to be going our way. It doesn't mean much here, but it at least gives you a good feeling that things are going well, at least going better than the others. We have to keep working hard. Nothing comes easy." Hornish (112.300 mph), Scott Sharp (112.240 mph) and Dario Franchitti (111.961 mph) rounded out the top five as teams turned 1,393 laps of incident free testing. IndyCar Series teams will take a day off before returning to test on the variably banked 1.5-mile oval on March 5. The IRL Indy Pro SeriesT will conduct its initial test of 2006 on the road course on March 4.
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