Motegi: Honda Thursday notes

Kanaan Continues Motegi Mastery

Defending race winner Tony Kanaan continued to be the man to beat at Twin Ring Motegi as the IndyCar Series returns to the Honda-owned oval track north of Tokyo, setting the pace Thursday in opening practice for Sunday's Bridgestone Indy Japan 300.

Homestead-Miami race winner Scott Dixon paced the morning practice session and ended the day second quickest overall, followed by his Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammate -- and two time Motegi winner -- Dan Wheldon.

Series points leader Helio Castroneves was fourth fastest, with Vision Racing's Ed Carpenter rounding out the top five. It was an incident-free day on the 1.5-mile speedway, with 18 drivers running a total of 827 laps (1,240.5 miles) without a single engine-related failure for the Honda HI8R Indy V-8 engine.

Tony Kanaan (#11 Andretti Green Racing Honda) quickest in practice: "In all the years we've been coming here, we've always had good cars, but until last year something always seemed to keep us from winning. That stopped last year and, finally, I got my first win here. Because this track is used only a couple of times a year, it's very dirty at the start, and most of the first practice session is spent putting some rubber down. Then the real work took place in the afternoon. Once again, I think we have a very good car, a car that is capable of winning, but that's probably also true for Scott [Dixon] and several other guys here this weekend."

-credit: honda