Jordan driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen became the first man to pilot a race car around the new Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course yesterday but it was predictably McLaren and Ferrari that dominated the first exchanges in the battle for the laurels around Formula One's newest circuit.
Frentzen was first in line at the pit exit at the start of the first timed practice yesterday and after finishing eighth at the end of the morning session admitted the banked oval section which was expected to give the Formula One drivers problems was not as difficult as he had feared.
"I'm enjoying being here," said the Jordan driver. "It's definitely a different feeling. At the end of the front straight it's too twisty, but I have to say the banking is not very challenging. But I'm definitely having fun."
By the afternoon Frentzen and team-mate Jarno Trulli had made progress on the still dusty track, the German climbing to fifth and Trulli making seventh, holding his position from the first hour. Trulli also admitted he had enjoyed the banking, a feature not seen since the Mexican Grand Prix of 1992 where the fearsome Peraltada corner was only slightly less banked than Indy's turns 12 and 13, saying it had taken a while to adjust to various angles of approach but once that was under control it had been fun.
But while the Jordans took up their customary positions in the middle of the top 10, the top of the timesheets was predictably occupied by the title challengers, McLaren and Ferrari.
After Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello spearheaded a spell of Ferrari dominance in the morning, beating out Mika Hakkinen who suffered gearbox problems throughout and David Coulthard who completed just two laps after stopping with electrical problems, McLaren came back in the afternoon. Coulthard topped the final timesheet with his championship-leading teammate in second. Schumacher, who trails Hakkinen by just two points in the race for the title, was satisfied with his performance, however, saying the performance of the Ferarri and the feel of the track was very close to the exhaustive pre-race simulations the team ran in Italy last week.
Jaguar's Eddie Irvine finished the day 12th, saying that the track was a lot narrower than expected. "It is a lot tighter than I thought after having walked it yesterday and driven it today. But it's a good mix of high speed and tight turns. A lot of fun," said the Irishman, whose first duty in Indianapolis was to appear at a press conference to welcome his new boss to Jaguar.
Bobby Rahal, current CEO of the CART series in the US and owner of his own CART team, will take over the day-to-day running of Jaguar next year.
Jacques Villeneuve, the only current F1 driver with experience of Indianapolis' banking having won the 500 here in 1995, finished the day fifth just five tenths behind Jenson Button.
FIA president Max Mosley yesterday used his visit to the remodelled track as a stick to further beat the troubled Silverstone circuit. The home of the British Grand Prix has been under fire since this year's storm-wrecked race which saw fans banned from the track on qualifying day and six-hours traffic jams on entry routes on race day.
The long-standing row between the FIA and Silverstone continued when Mosley used the vast Indianapolis Speedway's state-of-the-art facilities to again lambast the Northamptonshire track. "It certainly wouldn't hurt if, in the UK, we had a facility to the same standard as this one," he said. "It is intensely embarrassing when people visit the UK to talk about perhaps having a grand prix. They then say we're going up to your circuit, Silverstone, to have a look and we have to say `No, don't do that, we'll give you some other places to look at'.
"We hope before long in the UK there will be a facility of world standard. If there isn't, the future of the British Grand Prix as a round of the world championship must be very much in question."
