INDYCARNATION

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EDMONTON, Alberta – Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves topped the time chart in the morning practice session that preceded qualifications for the Honda Indy Edmonton.

Teammates Will Power and Ryan Briscoe were less than three-tenths of a second behind. In fact, the top 13 cars in the hour-long session were within one second of Castroneves' pace of 1 minute, 1.6643 seconds.

Newman/Haas Racing’s Hideki Mutoh added his name to the list of contenders for the PEAK Performance Pole Award by finishing fourth on the 1.973-mile, 14-turn City Centre Airport circuit. Watch the exciting three rounds of qualifications on www.indycar.com at 5:30 p.m. (ET).

Mutoh will be in the second group for the first round of qualifications. The first group includes all three Team Penske cars, plus Dreyer & Reinbold's Justin Wilson (pole winner last week at Toronto and seventh in the morning practice), Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Dario Franchitti (pole sitter at Brazil and 13th in the morning practice), and Canadians Paul Tracy (sixth in the morning session) and Alex Tagliani (24th).

Six cars from each of the two groups advance to the second round. That 15-minute all-cars session will determine the six cars to compete for the pole in the Firestone Fast Six.