Pleased Schuey Aims to Entertain American Crowd

World Champion Michael Schumacher was happy with his first day of work at the Indianapolis circuit after setting the second quickest time of the day in Friday's practice for the United States Grand Prix.

The German driver, who won last year at the historic circuit in the return of Formula One to America after an absence of nine years, reiterated his support to the American people following the tragic events in New York and Washington and was hopeful of putting on a good show for them on Sunday.

"It was a pretty normal Friday today," admitted Schumacher. "We just did our usual work of adapting the car to the circuit. There were no particular problems.

"Aside from that, I am happy to be racing here in the USA and I hope that this weekend's Grand Prix will entertain the crowd and bring some happiness and relief after the terrible events of a fortnight ago."

Brazilian Rubens Barrichello was also happy with his day's progress after posting the third fastest time only three hundreds of a second behind Schumacher.

"I am happy to be here in Indianapolis," said Barrichello. "I like it here and would have been disappointed if the race had been cancelled. We did a lot of laps today and that has given us a lot of data. From what I can see, the car seems to work pretty well. Tomorrow's qualifying will be all about being on the track at the right time."