Ryan Briscoe grabbed the fastest time in a frenetic end to Saturday morning IndyCar practice at Mid-Ohio, while his championship-leading Penske teammate Will Power had a heavy crash.
Power was on his eighth lap of the session when he went off at Turn 1 and had a violent rearward impact with the tire barriers. The Australian was unhurt, and the team immediately began work on rebuilding the car ready for qualifying at 12:35pm local time.
While Power's crew commenced the repair effort, his rivals were engaged in rapid-fire place-swapping at the front of the field, as the lead changed hands constantly while drivers tried qualifying setups late on. Briscoe ended up on top with a 1m07.1256s, ahead of Ganassi's Dario Franchitti by just 0.0087sec.
A strong session for KV Racing saw EJ Viso and Mario Moraes leap to third and fourth late on, with their teammate Takuma Sato in eighth. Helio Castroneves (Penske) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosport) completed the top six ahead of Ganassi's Scott Dixon.
Another strong road course run from Simona de Silvestro saw the HVM driver take 10th, just behind Dreyer & Reinbold's Justin Wilson. Friday pacesetter Graham Rahal (Newman/Haas) was back in 11th this morning, while Dreyer & Reinbold's debutant JR Hildebrand could not repeat his stunning Friday form but took a still highly respectable 15th.