Montoya followed up his morning speed with the fastest time (1:11.118) of Friday afternoon practice for the United States Grand Prix.

McLaren, reminiscent of this morning, were the fastest team throughout the one hour timed session. Kimi Raikkonen was right behind his team-mate Montoya as he went on to set the second best time at 1:11.228.

Ferrari has used their Canadian double podium result as momentum going into the USGP round.

With the circuit temperature dropping from 50 degrees to 41 during the session Rubens Barrichello (1:11.746) and Michael Schumacher (1:11.758) put their Ferrari’s into third and fourth positions.

The session was marred with what seemed to have been a problem with the Michelin tyres. After Ricardo Zonta spun his Toyota due to a left rear tyre failure, Ralf Schumacher had an eerily similar accident to his one year ago.

Ralf was pushing his car through the Indy first short shoot when his left rear tyre failed causing the German to hit the wall at the banked 13th corner. Unlike his 2004 accident Ralf climbed out of the car on his own power and will be fit enough to drive for the rest of the weekend.

While the marshals were clearing the circuit of debris and Ralf’s stricken Toyota Michelin ordered all of their runners to add air pressure to their rear tyres to prevent any more possible failures. After about a half an hour red flag session the circuit went to normal.

Nick Heidfeld gave the Williams team, who is having issues with engine supplier BMW, some home with his late minute fifth place time of 1:11.825.

The Red Bull team has a promising session with David Coulthard putting the RB1 in sixth before having some gearbox problems.

American Scott Speed spent the majority of the afternoon testing the tyre compound that Red Bull will use for the rest of the weekend.

During his 34 lap afternoon run he put his Cosworth powered car up to eighth place (1:12.143) despite being held up by Sauber’s Jacques Villeneuve for most of the lap.

Renault on the other hand did not seem to have the speed to battle for the top five as Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella finished in ninth and 11th positions.