Herta fastest at home in practice 1
Laguna Seca specialist Bryan Herta headed the times in the severely delayed first free practice session in California
The IRL ace had to wait for his chance to show his skill at the classic road course after heavy overnight rain made bogs of the run off areas and sent streams of muddy water across the track.
Frantic work by the track crew patched the areas up remarkably well, but with an 80 per cent chance of rain forecast for the rest of the weekend, there are still doubts over the race actually taking place.
When the running finally took place, Herta ended up three tenths quicker than flying Mexican Salvador Duran.
Dutch driver Jos Verstappen kept up his strong recent form with third fastest from Portugal's Alvaro Parente and championship leaders France, who have Nicolas Lapierre at the wheel this weekend.
Graham Rahal did an excellent job to put Team Lebanon in sixth, while Robbie Kerr was back in 14th for Team Great Britain.
On his A1 debut, Team Switzerland's Giorgio Mondini - the man who can stop France wrapping up the title this weekend - was back in 18th.
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Bryan Herta USA 1:18.620 12 2. Salvador Duran Mexico 1:18.948 + 0.328 19 3. Jos Verstappen Netherlands 1:19.085 + 0.465 27 4. Alvaro Parente Portugal 1:19.169 + 0.549 18 5. Nicolas Lapierre France 1:19.176 + 0.556 16 6. Graham Rahal Lebanon 1:19.318 + 0.698 19 7. Tomas Enge Czech Republic 1:19.445 + 0.825 16 8. Ralph Firman Ireland 1:19.458 + 0.838 24 9. Matt Halliday New Zealand 1:19.501 + 0.881 17 10. Christian Fittipaldi Brazil 1:19.565 + 0.945 23 11. Timo Scheider Germany 1:19.603 + 0.983 28 12. Alex Yoong Malaysia 1:19.624 + 1.004 23 13. Ananda Mikola Indonesia 1:19.731 + 1.111 19 14. Robbie Kerr Great Britain 1:19.905 + 1.285 24 15. Stephen Simpson South Africa 1:20.189 + 1.569 27 16. Max Papis Italy 1:20.190 + 1.570 22 17. Ryan Briscoe Australia 1:20.585 + 1.965 28 18. Giorgio Mondini Switzerland 1:20.758 + 2.138 28 19. Adam Khan Pakistan 1:21.667 + 3.047 30 20. Tengyi Jiang China 1:21.823 + 3.203 24 21. Mathias Lauda Austria 1:22.074 + 3.454 15 22. Patrick Carpentier Canada 1:22.464 + 3.844 15
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