"Practices?" Yep! It's a wonderful thing, SPEED's coverage for the US Grand Prix. We got to see both 90-minute practices today, not to mention a fun hour-long bit where the Legendary Announce Team (with 'special' guest Derek "Crashing" Daly) just got to talk about whatever they wanted. That was a lot more interesting than the practices, to be honest.

The cars were pretty closing matched in both practices, with 3 seconds seperating #1 to #20 in P1, and 1.9 seconds in P2. BMW's Sebastian Vettel, who's sitting in for Robert Kubica this race, actually was fourth fastest in P1. He has a decent shot at being the first teenager to score points in his first F1 race ever on Sunday. Pity that old man Lewis Hamilton...

Felipe Massa was less than a second off the track record, which was set back in 2001, when there were no limitations to things like aerodynamics and the engines were larger and more powerful. Amazing stuff, and it makes me wonder where the teams would be if they still had the V10s.

Fastest straight-line speed was set by David Coulthard's Chin and Red Bull, at over 209mph. McLaren was around 204, and Ferrari in between the two. McLaren, though, was consistently the best lappers on the day, which has GOT to be causing team Ferrari some consternation: they own this track.

No real incidents to talk about, unless you want to count Adrian Sutil beaching his Spyker in the kittylitter, then digging himself in deeper by trying to power out... he had nigh on a quarter of his rear tires buried by the time he gave up ("Give it a rest, son. You've embarrassed yourself, don't make worse than it already is," said Steve Matchett).

Lewis Hamilton continued to show no fear of any track, repeatedly bringing his McLaren within "a cigarette paper" of the wall on the exit of Turn 13. He almost looked like an IndyCar driver out there, except they don't get as close. Seriously, at one point the shadow that the tire was casting on the wall was nearly as tall as the tire itself... one teeny twitch, one strong heartbeat, and he would have been in the wall, but no. This is Lewis Hamilton, the Next Michael Schumacher, who was the Next Ayrton Senna, and so on and so forth.

So, 3.5 hours of coverage on Saturday, and I'll give you the scoop on P3 and Quals afterwards! Talk to you then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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