Barrichello Delighted with Practice Showing

Brazilian Rubens Barrichello moved out of Ferrari teammate Michael Schumacher's shadow on Friday with the fastest lap in practice for Sunday's US Grand Prix.

Barrichello, still searching for his first win of the year while the Championship leader sets his sights on an eighth in nine starts, topped the timesheets in both sessions at The Brickyard.

The Brazilian's best lap, set in the afternoon, of 1:10.365 was more than a second inside Schumacher's 2003 race lap record of 1:11.473.

"It went very good," the Brazilian, who is yet to outqualify Schumacher this season, said. "We are very happy with the performance. We still have to do a lot of work in terms of finding the tyre and so on. It's going to be a busy day tomorrow.

"It's going to be a day to find the best set-up for the race, but the new tyres are working quite well, and that makes me happy because I could go out on both sets of tyres and find by best lap of the day, so I hope it is a perfect start of the weekend."

Barrichello has a good record at Indianapolis, winning controversially two years ago when race leader Schumacher slowed in the final straight to allow his teammate to close up and instead ended up second.

The Brazilian is second in the Championship, 16 points adrift of six times champion Schumacher. The German, fourth fastest today, was one of several drivers to spin during the session at the dusty circuit.

"I just ran out of road," he said. "Those circuits are too small for me. We're really running on the limit, it's Friday, it's hot ­ it's probably going to be less hot on Sunday. I'm not too concerned."