France back on top in practice
Team France showed that the A1 Grand Prix title should becomes theirs this weekend at Laguna Seca by topping the times in the second free practice session
With the track now dry after the overnight storm, the session ran without interruption and it was only in the dying seconds that Nicolas Lapierre snatched the top spot from Team South Africa's Stephen Simpson.
It was close, with just seven thousandths of a second between them. But more significantly, France's main rivals in the points standing Team Switzerland set only the 21st best time, with Giorgio Mondini continuing to struggle.
Robbie Kerr, for Team Great Britain, was the only other driver in the 1:16 bracket, while Salvador Duran kept up his good form by going fourth quickest.
Ryan Briscoe found his A1 feet to set the fifth best time for Team Australia, but yesterday's pacesetter Bryan Herta was back in eighth in the USA machine.
With clear skies over the Californian track, qualifying looks set to kick off as scheduled.
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Nicolas Lapierre France 1:16.840 23 2. Stephen Simpson South Africa 1:16.847 + 0.007 27 3. Robbie Kerr Great Britain 1:16.873 + 0.033 25 4. Salvador Duran Mexico 1:17.011 + 0.171 20 5. Ryan Briscoe Australia 1:17.466 + 0.626 32 6. Tomas Enge Czech Republic 1:17.551 + 0.711 25 7. Patrick Carpentier Canada 1:17.732 + 0.892 20 8. Bryan Herta USA 1:17.845 + 1.005 19 9. Matt Halliday New Zealand 1:17.907 + 1.067 25 10. Graham Rahal Lebanon 1:18.057 + 1.217 17 11. Max Papis Italy 1:18.101 + 1.261 27 12. Ananda Mikola Indonesia 1:18.174 + 1.334 27 13. Timo Scheider Germany 1:18.212 + 1.372 17 14. Christian Fittipaldi Brazil 1:18.281 + 1.441 25 15. Alvaro Parente Portugal 1:18.319 + 1.479 10 16. Alex Yoong Malaysia 1:18.329 + 1.489 26 17. Ralph Firman Ireland 1:18.547 + 1.707 14 18. Mathias Lauda Austria 1:18.566 + 1.726 24 19. Jos Verstappen Netherlands 1:18.973 + 2.133 20 20. Adam Khan Pakistan 1:18.987 + 2.147 12 21. Giorgio Mondini Switzerland 1:19.654 + 2.814 25 22. Qinghua Ma China 1:19.975 + 3.135 17
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