USA Tops First Practice at Brands
Team USA led the way in the maiden free practice session for A1 Grand Prix, which was marred by three red flag periods
Scott Speed, who dominated the last official free practice at Paul Ricard last month, again was the quickest of the 25 National teams.
Nelson Piquet Jr, returning for the first time to the track where he clinched the 2004 British F3 championship, was second in the Brazilian entry. Nicolas Lapierre, in the French entry, pipped local hero Robbie Kerr in the British car.
The biggest red-flag causing incident was for Team India's Karun Chandhok, who was airborne when he collided with Jos Verstappen's bright orange Team Netherlands car at the Druids hairpin.
Chandhok had let Will Power through at the slow corner and didn't appear to see Verstappen, who tried to follow the Team Australia car through. The pair touched, launching Chandhok into the air.
The Team India car landed the correct way up, but the underside was badly damaged and the front right corner suspension was badly damaged.
The other red flags were caused by Qinghua Ma, who spun the Chinese car at Paddock Hill Bend, and by Alexey Vasiliev's Russian car, which collided with Michael Davaney's Team Ireland machine.Pos Team Time Laps 1. USA 1:16.875 16 2. Brazil 1:17.156 + 0.281 12 3. France 1:17.215 + 0.340 17 4. Great Britain 1:17.463 + 0.588 18 5. Malaysia 1:17.578 + 0.703 16 6. Australia 1:17.673 + 0.798 28 7. Switzerland 1:17.731 + 0.856 21 8. Portugal 1:17.741 + 0.866 17 9. Netherlands 1:17.970 + 1.095 17 10. Mexico 1:17.997 + 1.122 25 11. New Zealand 1:18.157 + 1.282 21 12. Germany 1:18.344 + 1.469 13 13. Canada 1:18.470 + 1.595 26 14. South Africa 1:18.639 + 1.764 20 15. Japan 1:18.860 + 1.985 26 16. Pakistan 1:18.932 + 2.057 11 17. Czech Republic 1:19.397 + 2.522 18 18. Lebanon 1:19.491 + 2.616 22 19. Ireland 1:19.542 + 2.667 13 20. Austria 1:19.674 + 2.799 13 21. Indonesia 1:20.125 + 3.250 14 22. Russia 1:22.905 + 6.030 12 23. Italy 1:25.324 + 8.449 3 24. China 1:26.555 + 9.680 13 25. India 1:28.606 + 11.731 2 All Timing Unofficial
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