DIXON TOPS CHARTS AGAIN AT SEBRING

DIXON TOPS TIME SHEETS AGAIN AS SEBRING TEST CONCLUDES

SEBRING, Fla. (Friday, March 9, 2012) - For the second day in a row, a Target Chip Ganassi Racing driver topped the time sheet as the IZOD IndyCar Series completed its four-day Open Test at Sebring International Raceway.

Scott Dixon was quickest (on his final lap of the afternoon session) at 51.7938 seconds over the 1.67-mile, 11-turn short course as drivers, teams and manufacturers prepared for the season-opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. He was the only driver to post a sub-52-second lap during the Open Test, which was divided into two groups (10 cars in the first group and 15 in the second).

Teammate Dario Franchitti was 0.2219 of a second back, and Rubens Barrichello of KV Racing Technology had a best lap of 52.2242 seconds (0.4305 of a second behind Dixon). Mike Conway, driving the No. 14 ABC Supply car for A.J. Foyt Racing, had another strong outing (52.2243) to place fourth, and Graham Rahal was fifth (52.4692) in the No. 38 Service Central Chip Ganassi Racing car.

A total of 688 laps were recorded on the day, and 4,107 laps for both groups without incident. Among both groups of drivers, Barrichello ranked fourth on the time sheet -- Helio Castroneves' lap of 52.1413 seconds on March 6 only two-tenths of a second better.

DAY 4 QUOTES:

SCOTT DIXON (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda): "Overall it was a good day for Team Target. We got started late because of some issues, and probably didn't get accomplished what we needed to in the first part of the day. We made a big suspension change at lunch time, and I actually didn't like all of that stuff, but we came out around 3 p.m., and didn't have time to go back on those things, so we stuck with it. We made steering changes and damper changes and seem to find a bit of a compromise for what we had. Today was more a day of learning about the new car and trying to soak up as much as we can before St. Pete." (About his fast lap at the end): "We did the work on the car and as the sun went down a bit and the clouds came in, the track picked up some time. We definitely worked to make the car better as well. I was good to do something for the lads at the end and it worked out."

DARIO FRANCHITTI (No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda): "The team always does a good job, they're very, very good. We're trying to learn these new cars. We're trying to learn the new car, what might break on them, where the weak spots are, how to make them go fast. Honda is learning very quickly too so we're just trying to get through all of this stuff just now. I'm very happy with the two days we've had, obviously the first two days for me right from break-in, we had a lot of questions coming in to this test and we got answers to most of them, so hopefully we can put the pieces together for St. Pete and onwards."