Sarah Fisher Racing's Jay Howard was quickest in morning practice ahead of the final Bump Day qualifying session at Indianapolis, but far more significant was that 2004 IndyCar Series champion Tony Kanaan crashed his back-up car early in the session and will face a race against time to qualify for this year's 500.

Kanaan is among the drivers yet to earn a place in the field, having crashed heavily on his first qualifying run yesterday. The Andretti Autosport was hoping to make the field today in his spare car, but spun at Turn 1 on his fourth lap this morning, eventually damaging all four corners of the No. 11T Dallara-Honda by the time it came to rest against the Turn 2 barrier.

Howard came close to making the top 24 yesterday and looks in good shape for Bump Day, having lapped at 39.8307sec (225.956mph) this morning.

KV Racing's Paul Tracy, also yet to make the grid, was second fastest, ahead of Simona de Silvestro, who did get in yesterday so was just getting extra pre-race practice mileage, as were Marco Andretti, Hideki Mutoh, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Dan Wheldon and Danica Patrick.

Bruno Junqueira finally took to the track in the second FAZZT car, which has not run so far while the team resolved sponsorship issues. The Brazilian will go into final qualifying with just eight laps under his belt, but got straight up to a 224.385mph pace in his short run late in this morning's session.

Takuma Sato has been cleared to drive again following his practice accident yesterday, and was 12th fastest for KV Racing.

Pos  Driver               Team          Time      Gap
 1.  Jay Howard           Sarah Fisher  39.8307s
 2.  Paul Tracy           KV            39.9541s  + 0.1234s
 3.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM           39.9710s  + 0.1403s
 4.  Vitor Meira          Foyt          40.0525s  + 0.2218s
 5.  Mario Romancini      Conquest      40.0686s  + 0.2379s
 6.  Alex Lloyd           Dale Coyne    40.0701s  + 0.2394s
 7.  Marco Andretti       Andretti      40.0804s  + 0.2497s
 8.  Bruno Junqueira      Fazzt         40.1096s  + 0.2789s
 9.  Sarah Fisher         Sarah Fisher  40.1180s  + 0.2873s
10.  Sebastian Saavedra   Herta         40.1775s  + 0.3468s
11.  Hideki Mutoh         Newman/Haas   40.2297s  + 0.3990s
12.  Takuma Sato          KV            40.3504s  + 0.5197s
13.  Milka Duno           Dale Coyne    40.3850s  + 0.5543s
14.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti      40.4819s  + 0.6512s
15.  Dan Wheldon          Panther       40.5188s  + 0.6881s
16.  AJ Foyt IV           Foyt          40.5728s  + 0.7421s
17.  Danica Patrick       Andretti      40.8847s  + 1.0540s
18.  Tony Kanaan          Andretti      41.0098s  + 1.1791s