Fisher thrilled by McLaren run

It was something of a baptism of fire for the Indy Racing League racer, and she adopted a restrained approach to something that was a demonstration for the US public rather than a performance run.

Asked whether anything negative had been said to her about the prospects for either Americans or women at the sport's highest level, the 21-year-old said: "David Coulthard is a very nice guy, I want to point that out first, before I say anything else. This morning when I came in to talk to him, he said: 'Sarah, if nobody has told you about these cars, I'd be more than happy to do so.'

"David is a very personable driver, very approachable and very accepting. Nobody has said anything negative to my face, and everything that has been said to me is positive.

"Any race-car driver in America will tell you that the ultimate is to at least drive these cars for a couple laps and see what it's like. A race car is a race car, always, but the biggest difference I found between an Indycar and an F1 car was the acceleration and deceleration forces.

"The first time I felt the acceleration, it was like: 'Whoa! Okay. Thank God it's got traction control!' It was great fun but I didn't get to light it up very much. Obviously, I only had three laps to do it, and by the third lap I'm thinking: 'OK, at Turn 4 I can go in a bit deeper there,' and then they came on the radio and said: 'OK, park it down on the bricks, you're done.'

"It would be nice to go to Europe and do a proper test, but nobody has asked me before. Niki Lauda was the first here, but I don't know if he was serious!"