Michael Schumacher headed a dominant Ferrari one-two finish in the incident-filled United States Grand Prix on Sunday. Although only nine cars finished at Indianapolis, F1 champion Fernando Alonso delivered a surprisingly mediocre performance to finish fifth.
Michael Schumacher headed a dominant Ferrari one-two finish in the incident-filled United States Grand Prix on Sunday. Although only nine cars finished at Indianapolis, F1 champion Fernando Alonso delivered a surprisingly mediocre performance to finish fifth.
Although Ferrari had struggled to match Renault’s pace ever since the European Grand Prix, the Scuderia dominated the US event in a manner F1 fans last witnessed during the Maranello team’s glory days in 2004. Starting from pole position, the German claimed his 87th career win and team-mate Felipe Massa scored his best ever result with second. The rest of the field had no answer to the scarlet cars, but Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella scored a solid third place.
Toyota’s Jarno Trulli started from the pit lane after his car needed suspension repairs, but the Italian drove one of the best races of his career and went on to finish fourth. No fewer than seven drivers were eliminated from the race in the first two corners – Franck Montagny, Christian Klien and Mark Webber collided, and then the McLaren Mercedes cars of Juan-Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen crashed, Jenson Button’s Honda incurred what turned out to be terminal damage, Scot Speed’s Toro Rosso was punted off the circuit and Nick Heidfeld’s Sauber BMW was launched into the air and barrel rolled three or four times before coming to rest in the gravel.
Soon afterwards, Super Aguri’s Takuma Sato and MF1’s Tiago Monteiro clashed, resulting in both of them retiring. With the field down to 12 runners, the race settled down. Massa did a fine job in the lead but it was only a matter of time before Schumacher took the lead at the first round of pit stops. The German is second in the title fight and it would make no sense for Massa to take points off the German, especially on a day that Alonso was struggling.
Alonso had never finished at Indianapolis before and the Spaniard apparently struggled with oversteer in the race. For once, Fisichella had the measure of his Renault team-mate and Alonso had to cede to the Italian, who duly took third. Trulli’s one-stop race strategy helped Toyota get ahead of the world champion’s Renault and the Italian claimed a fourth-placed finish ahead of Alonso.
Rubens Barrichello had an almost unnoticeable afternoon but finished sixth. Red Bull’s David Coulthard had another spirited drive from low on the grid to claim two points in seventh and Vitantonio Luizzi claimed a legitimate point for Toro Rosso after a feisty performance from the Italian. Williams’ Nico Rosberg finished last in ninth place and was the only driver that didn’t score points.