Series: F1

After a chaotic and exciting United States Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, one thing is very clear: Michael Schumacher is on the verge of an historic sixth Formula One World Championship.

Schumacher won the United States Grand Prix on Sept. 28, beating second place Kimi Raikkonen by 18.258 seconds in a race that featured constantly changing weather conditions.

Ferrari leader Schumacher leads Raikkonen, 92-83, in the Drivers Championship standings with just the Japanese Grand Prix remaining Oct. 12. A driver can earn a maximum of 10 points, so the only way Raikkonen can win the title is if he wins in Japan and Schumacher fails to score.

“A great and an important one,” Schumacher said of the victory. “Obviously, an important outcome for the rest of the competitors, what concerns my position for the championship. And now I’m so pleased. I mean, it’s such an emotional day today, so fantastic.

“Obviously, it’s a very good position for us to start the last race. We just need one point, basically. But you never know. I mean, you have first to finish, and that will be obviously the main target. On the other side, I think we have a very reliable car. We have a good record for this, so we will be obviously very optimistic.”

Heinz-Harald Frentzen finished third in a Sauber-Petronas, his first podium result since finishing third at this race in 2000.

Schumacher averaged 121.890 mph for the 73-lap race to earn his sixth victory of the season. It was the 70th victory of his career, extending his all-time F1 record.

2000 Indianapolis 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya entered this race just three points behind Schumacher in the standings but left Indianapolis 10 points behind after finishing sixth in a Williams-BMW. Montoya was slowed by an early collision with Ferrari’s Rubens Barrichello, a subsequent drive-through penalty and was caught by the changing weather conditions.

Montoya wasn’t alone among the drivers confounded by the alternating light rain, heavy rain and dry conditions throughout the 73-lap race.

Raikkonen started from the pole in his McLaren-Mercedes in dry conditions, but light rain began to fall on Lap 2.

The first of many incidents took place on Lap 3 when Montoya and Barrichello collided as Montoya attempted an inside pass in Turn 2 while battling for fifth place. Montoya continued, falling to eighth after the collision, but Barrichello’s race ended in the gravel trap.

“Unfortunately, we were running side by side ˆ well, fortunately or unfortunately because it made it good for the public,” Barrichello said. “I had nothing else to do. I had given him space when we turned into Turn 2, running on the outside, just hoping to get better traction, and Montoya touched the curb, and the curb was humid, and he slid down into me. Or he didn’t want to lift because the space was there.”

The rain ended and resumed over the next 15 laps, while Raikkonen stayed out front. Schumacher struggled in the light showers on his dry-weather Bridgestone tires, falling to sixth by Lap 8 as drivers on Michelin dry tires passed him.

Heavy rain started to fall on Lap 21. On Lap 22, race stewards assessed Montoya a drive-through penalty for causing the accident with Barrichello. Montoya could not change tires during the drive-through and returned to the 2.605-mile circuit in a downpour without wet-weather tires. He pitted on the next lap for wet-weather tires but was outside the top 10 on Lap 25 before battling back into the points, helped by attrition.

“A very disappointing race, basically decided by the penalty I was given for the accident with Rubens and the moment I had to pay it,” Montoya said.

Jenson Button inherited the lead on Lap 23. Raikkonen made his first pit stop on Lap 19 and handed the lead first to Schumacher for one lap, then to Mark Webber, who spun into the tire barrier and out of the race on dry tires in a heavy downpour on that lap.

Meanwhile, Schumacher had made two pit stops, a scheduled stop on Lap 20 that included dry tires despite the light rain and then a quick stop on Lap 21 to change to wet tires during the downpour.

“Yeah, it’s a knife edge, honestly,” Schumacher said of tire strategy decisions in the rain. “It can be either right or wrong. You’ve seen some guys coming in very early when the first rain came in, like (Olivier) Panis, I think, putting on wet tires. It just needed a little extra rain and it would have been the right decision, but it didn’t come, then it was the wrong decision.

“So it was for us sort of when we came for the first pit stop, we thought it would be another one of that just spit of rain, then stopping, and it would have been wrong to be out on rain tires. So we thought, ŒOK, dry.’ That was the wrong decision. Fortunately, every one of the front-runners at that stage had made the same decision, so it didn’t cost us too much. With the performance of our rain tires, I was able to make up the deficit I took from the time before.”

Schumacher passed Raikkonen for third, behind Button and Frentzen, on Lap 28. He overhauled Frentzen for second on Lap 33 and set his sights on Button’s BAR-Honda, which was 6.5 seconds ahead.

By Lap 37, Schumacher closed the gap to Button to two-tenths of a second. Schumacher then wasted little time disposing of Button, passing him with an inside move entering Turn 1 on Lap 38.

Schumacher then pulled away with a flawless drive over the last 35 laps, making his final pit stop for fuel and dry-weather tires on Lap 48. He lost the lead for only one lap to Frentzen, who pitted on Lap 49 to hand the lead back to Schumacher.

The 2004 United States Grand Prix is scheduled for June 20.

Source: Indianapolis Motor Speedway