Rookie Matsuura leads third day of practice.

Indy Racing League rookie Kosuke Matsuura maintained his strong start to practice for the Indianapolis 500 by turning the fastest lap of the month during the afternoon of day three at the Brickyard.

The Japanese driver - who, along with team-mate Adrian Fernandez, was comfortably in the top six on Monday - lapped nearly three-tenths of a second faster than double 500 champion Helio Castroneves had managed on day two, stopping the clocks at 40.5666secs during the course of his 55 laps.

"It was a great day," an increasingly confident Matsuura admitted, "It is not qualifying, but it was a good day. Our car was very good, as was the Honda engine, and the team did a very good job. Adrian and I both had very quick and very strong cars, which is good.

"I put on new tyres and, after two laps, I had the quickest time. Then my engineer told me to come back to the pits. I could have made a better lap, but it wasn't necessary. Today is just Tuesday. We had a lot of fuel in the car, about half a tank, not like qualifying configuration. I think in qualifying configuration, we can have about 222-223mph.

"Saturday's qualifying will depend on the weather and how conditions change, but it is the same for everyone. We will need some luck for the qualifying, but I am very confident."

Fernandez completed a 1-2 for his eponymous team, taking second place with a lap at 221.705mph. The Mexican, who only made the decision to switch from Champ Cars to the IRL ahead of round two in Phoenix, is now picking up pace having got to know his G-Force/Honda combination over the intervening weeks, and had been a fixture in the top five all week.

"What can I say?" he asked, "This is a fantastic day for the team. We were strong all day - the engineers are doing a great job, and we just have to keep the momentum all month."

Tony Kanaan again featured in the top three, lapping at 220.855mph in his Team 7-Eleven Andretti Green car, as Honda took four of the top-five spots on the speed chart.

"I hate to sound like a broken record, but today was a lot like yesterday," the Brazilian reported, "We struggled a little bit in the morning and then found ourselves late in the afternoon. I feel more confident than yesterday, for sure. I think we're on the right track, so now we just need to chase the speed."

The top was completed by Monday pacesetter Castroneves and another of the Andretti Green quartet, Bryan Herta. The Brazilian was disappointed not to have been higher placed, but admitted that set-up changes on his car had not worked.

"Today was tough," he confirmed, "We made some changes to the Marlboro Team Penske car that didn't work as we hoped they would. We're not quite where we want to be, but we have a few more days before qualifying to continue to improve the car."

Herta, by contrast, was pleased with the direction his AGR crew had gone.

"We made some good gains with the feel of the XM Satellite Radio car, and that is the key early in the week," he admitted, "We still haven't been working on a trimmed-out race car yet, but Indy always feels better when you're going faster. That little bit of extra speed gives you a little more downforce and a little more grip. You know, the faster you go, the better it feels."

AGR enjoyed a productive day, with points leader Dan Wheldon also among the ten fastest drivers on track. Fourth team member, Dario Franchitti, was the only driver not to feature, having taken time to dial his car into the ever-changing conditions.

"It is still early, but it is getting to the time when you need to kind of perfect your balance, and we're still not there yet," Wheldon admitted, despite lapping just four-tenths off Matsuura's front-running pace, "Competition for the pole is going to be tough, and we'll need to step up our game, but I know the boys at Andretti Green Racing are up to it."

Franchitti had reason to be grateful for the multi-car set-up at AGR, having used three other sets of data to help come up with a package for the Arca/Ex machine.

"We sat down, took the resources of all four cars, all four engineers - even Michael [Andretti] - involved in the mix - and made big strides on all four cars," the Scot revealed, "My lap time was a bit slower than yesterday, but the circumstances were much different. I'm a lot happier with the car, and I think it's something we can really work with for the race now."

Buddy Rice made a similar breakthrough in the lead Team Rahal car, having had a slow start to the week, and was happy to admit that he wasn't even running at the optimum part of the day.

"It was our first real day of testing," Rice revealed, "The rain on Monday set us back a little on our game, but today helped us get back to our original plan. It takes the pressure off our guys now. The car felt really solid, and I think we are happy with our programme right now.

"A lot of the speeds are with drafts, so I don't get too concerned about our speed. We'll work on that in another day or so. The 'Happy Hour' deal is easy to get caught up in - drafting and trying to put up a big number. Things always seem to happen in that time - look at Robby [Gordon] yesterday, and Felipe [Giaffone] today. To be honest, I'm glad I'm sitting in the garage right now."

Giaffone's #24 Team Purex/Dreyer & Reinbold Dallara was involved in the only incident of the day, when he made light contact with the wall in the short chute between turns three and four, then made a harder secondary contact with the SAFER Barrier in turn four itself. Giaffone was uninjured in the incident, and expects to be back in action today [Wednesday].

"I was trying to work in the draft and then got a little push, so I lifted, but then I got a huge push and got up in the grey," the Brazilian revealed, "It's frustrating because it's usually turn one that's always the difficult one. I feel badly for the team because the car was good and we were making progress, but we'll be back out tomorrow and ready with the other car."

Having spent the early part of the week at the top end of the charts, reigning champion Scott Dixon's regular car was mired down in 21st after a difficult day. The New Zealander did break the top ten in his spare machine, however, but completed just 37 laps in both cars all day.

"We had some gremlins to deal with today, so we didn't get much track time," he explained, "I took the back-up car out in the afternoon, but didn't feel it was as fast as the primary. It wasn't our best day, but it's better to deal with those issues now than later in the month."

Also struggling on day three was Sarah Fisher, who found that changes made to the #39 Bryant Heating car hadn't worked the way she and the Kelley team had thought they would.

"We kind of got lost after coming back out this afternoon," Fisher admitted, "We tried some splits and springs, but we aren't to the point of fine-tuning yet. We're still trying to get something that is fast and consistent and everything all in one package. We had to backtrack a little bit on some of the changes we made, but I think we made good progress in the end."

Team-mate Scott Sharp revealed that he and his crew were working more towards the race itself, having previously got caught up in the desire to set pole position times.

"In the past, we've spent a lot of time at the Speedway working mainly on a qualifying set-up, and I think that has hurt us on race day, the veteran confirmed, "This year, we have decided that, although qualifying is important, we want to make sure that we have a good race package. You spend 364 days a year thinking about winning the Indianapolis 500, so that is our goal."

A lot of teams decided to follow the same route on Tuesday, with British rookie Mark Taylor admitting that he still had much to learn about the nuances of the famous track.

"We spent most of the day working on longer runs and getting my line where it needs to be," he revealed, "We weren't the quickest car on the track today, but our laps were consistent, and that was what we wanted to accomplish. It was a good day - we got some mileage on our Chevy engine and plenty of good data. It was quite a long day too, but well worth while."

Testing continues today [Wednesday] ahead of this weekend's qualifying session.