Times tumble in final US GP practice

Times tumbled in the final preparations for US Grand Prix qualifying as the full field practiced in the final 45-minute session.

McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen set the best speed of 1:10.643 on the 2.605-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway road circuit while Jenson Button brought the BAR-Honda to second place, 0.201 seconds in arrears at 1:10.844, logging the most laps, 15, of all competitors. The final driver under the 1 minute 11 second mark was Fernando Alonso in the Renault at 1:10.920.

Michael Schumacher was fourth with the Ferrari at 1:11.203, earning the fastest sector 1 speed of 21.7 seconds. Button claimed top sector 2 time of 29.1 seconds while Raikkonen made his biggest gains in sector 3 at 19.5 seconds. In all eight drivers practiced within one second.

Takuma Sato, who finished on podium here in 2004 held fifth place in the BAR-Honda at 1:11.324, followed by Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault at 1:11.375. Jarno Trulli placed seventh in the first Toyota with his lap of 1:11.457 and Juan Pablo Montoya, fastest Friday in the McLaren was the final driver within one second of leader Raikkonen at 1:11.574.

Ricardo Zonta got right down to business in the Toyota, ninth at 1:11.760 while Rubens Barrichello rounded out the top ten at 1:11.794.

The speed shown by the Red Bull team vaporized this morning and they were 11th best (Christian Klien) and 16th (David Coulthard). Both Red Bull drivers had wiggles with off-course excursions, as did Barrichello early in the session and Fisichella midway through. Apparently Michelin decreed higher tire pressures for all of its teams and the change did not work well with the setups for the Red Bull cars.

In the first practice held earlier in the day, Montoya took the top spot at 1:10.726 followed by Schumacher, Barrichello, Coulthard and Tiago Monteiro in the Jordan. Not every driver went out for this preliminary practice session.

It is cloudy and cool here in Indianapolis this morning but temperatures are expected to increase to the mid-70s by the time single car time trials commence at 1PM EST.