Michael Schumacher skillfully evaded the carnage of the dramatic United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis on Sunday. The German led a Ferrari one-two finish in a race marred by the high-speed crash of his brother Ralf.
Michael Schumacher skillfully evaded the carnage of the dramatic United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis on Sunday. The German led a Ferrari one-two finish in a race marred by the high-speed crash of his brother Ralf.
The six-time world champion beat team-mate Rubens Barrichello by 2,9 seconds. BAR Honda’s Takuma Sato took his first podium finish in third after a brilliant charge during the middle of the race. After starting from the back of the grid, Renault’s Jarno Trulli came home fourth and Toyota took fifth with Olivier Panis.
The two McLaren-Mercedes MP4-19s of Kimi Raikkonen and David Coulthard finished sixth and seventh, and Hungarian Zsolt Baumgartner gained Minardi one precious point with eighth.
The safety car was deployed at the end of the first lap when four cars were involved in an incident at the first corner — Jaguar’s Chrisitian Klien, Sauber’s Felipe Massa, Jordan’s Giorgio Pantano and Minardi’s Gianmaria Bruni. Michael Schumacher grabbed the lead from Barrichello immediately after the safety car left the track.
Fernando Alonso, who had the best start so far this season – from ninth to third at the first corner – suffered a puncture early on and the Renault crashed at high speed, but he was unharmed.
But Ralf Schumacher’s Williams-BMW spun heading into the last corner on Lap 10 and hit the wall backwards, scattering debris all over the track. The wrecked Williams came to rest in the middle of the track and the safety car was deployed as it took a while to extract Ralf from the car but, although bruised and concussed, the reports were that he was in a satisfactory condition. The German was taken to hospital, where team boss Frank Williams said the driver would remain under supervision and receive a precautionary cat scan.
During the safety car period, Ferrari, like most teams, brought both cars in for pit stops. Barrichello was forced to wait in line behind the world champion, which dropped him briefly to sixth place, before he fought back up the field and closed the gap to Schumacher.
The Brazilian briefly challenged his team leader after his final pit stop, forcing Schumacher to aggressively shut the door with 18 laps to go, but then backed off to score a comfortable second place.
Trulli recovered brilliantly after starting from the back of the grid following an electronics problem in qualifying. The Italian was up to 11th place after a stunning first lap and then drove consistently to benefit from good pit work from his Renault team and move briefly up to third place.
However, Trulli lost the final podium place to a charging Takuma Sato with 11 laps to go. Sato’s BAR team made a mistake in not bringing in the Japanese and team-mate Button during the second safety car period.
But Sato, in the fastest car in the race, drove superbly to catch Trulli and pass him at the first corner with just under 20 laps to go. It made him only the second Japanese driver to stand on an F1 podium, following Aguri Suzuki’s third place in the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix.
Williams-BMW’s Juan-Pablo Montoya was heading for fifth place but he was disqualified after changing cars before the start. His race car failed on the grid, and he was too late in switching to the spare car – but it took race officials most of the Grand Prix before black-flagging the Colombian and ending his grand prix.
Jaguar driver Mark Webber lost seventh place at the home race for his Ford-owned team when he suffered engine failure with 11 laps remaining. That elevated Coulthard to seventh and Giancarlo Fisichella’s Sauber to eighth, only for the Italian to retire with five laps to go and hand the final point to Baumgartner’s Minardi.
Sunday’s race marked Michael Schumacher’s 78th career victory and his eight win in the nine races so far this year. It extended his championship lead to 18 points over Barrichello.