USA Grand Prix Review

With the Bridgestones working to their best at Indianapolis, unlike at Montreal, the Prancing Horse were simply imperious. Schumi exuded confidence in practice, and as a no-bull realist these days when it comes to assessing his team’s form, that was an ominous sign for the rest of the field. For a lap that was only around 73 seconds, his gap in qualifying from pole back to team-mate Felipe Massa alongside him on the front row, and from the Brazilian back to the Renaults, was just staggering.

In the race, the red machines gave the impression of pacing themselves. Massa made the better start as Schumi endured a second stodgy getaway in succession, and also responded to the safety car pulling off the track much better than the seven-time champion. But through Michael’s superior in and out laps at his first stop, Massa perhaps deliberately taking it easy, or perhaps a combination of both, the German emerged in front, and from there it was a cruise to the finish.

The switch between Massa and Schumacher was always going to happen; in fact, given the state of play in the championship, Ferrari would be stupid not to make it happen. So there’s no point even starting to make noises about team orders and whatnot. It was Massa’s best F1 result, and deservedly so, but the big news is that Michael is now 19 points behind Alonso, with 8 races to go, and with a new glimmer of hope. The question is now whether Renault will quash that hope even before it properly crystallises.

Once Fernando got the call to let Fisi by, the Roman drove assuredly to 3rd, whilst the World Champion’s understeer became oversteer in the second stint, rounding off a rare weekend in which his set-up radar had been strangely off-target. He found himself amidst the Toyotas, with Jarno Trulli in particular helped by the first lap melee, the safety car, and his one-stop strategy. A dodgy second stop meant that he was en route to not only losing 4th to Trulli, but 5th to Ralf Schumacher as well.

Ralf’s retirement allowed the points leader to inherit 5th, his worst race result since Hungary last year, some 16 races ago, and also the first time since then that he’s been off the podium. He’s therefore lost his bid at Michael’s 2002 consistency record, but on assumes there will be some mega fightback on Renault’s home soil at Magny-Cours. We learnt last year that, when dealing with Renault, one is always tempted to say "The title chase is back on!", only for the Regie to dominate again at the next event.

At this point, it’s probably worth mentioning the two first lap collisions that decimated the field and knocked 8 cars out immediately. First corner incidents at Indy are always on the cards when there is the long drag using the full width of the superspeedway, followed by the concertina effect as cars funnel into the narrower infield section. It’s not unlike the Cleveland airport circuit for Champ Cars, where each year there is guaranteed mayhem at the first corner.

JPM’s carelessness was probably not in the fact that he hit team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, forcing the Colombian into Jenson Button’s Honda, who in turn nudged Nick Heidfeld’s BMW into that graphic series of barrel-rolls, and knocked out Scott Speed’s Toro Rosso as well. Rather, Montoya’s error was to put himself into that situation in the first place, with so little room and margin for error that, as soon as Raikkonen lifted to squeeze through turn 2 behind Rubens Barrichello and Jacques Villeneuve, JPM hit.

Out of the victims, Klien simply put his seat in further doubt after team-mate David Coulthard stole the limelight again. Webber had been caught in Williams’ ordinariness, and Montagny may well have kissed his seat goodbye to Sakon Yamamoto. Button had been out-qualified by Barrichello again, and Rubens’ race pace doesn’t suggest that Jenson would have achieved great things either. Heidfeld too had been outshone by team-mate Villeneuve.

The unluckiest casualty of the wheel-banging, however, was surely Speed. With the jury still out on him, he excelled on home soil, living up to his name and qualifying a superb 13th, in what was generally a very competitive weekend for the former Minardi. The American had also made a banzai start, rounding Webber and accounting for Ralf going into turn one. He simply was in the wrong place at the wrong time. 5th or 6th place could have been his for the taking.

So it was Toyota that cleaned up the spoils, undoubtedly fortunate, but they took their opportunities. The suspension problem that mired Trulli in 20th in qualifying, followed by his engine change and starting the race from pit lane, turned into a silver lining when he avoided the first corner havoc, cleared his midfield competitors as a result, and caught up during the safety car period. On a one-stop strategy compared to Renault’s two-stop plan, and with similar pace, he was always going to be a cat amongst the pigeons.

With Ralf’s retirement, Barrichello was elevated to 6th, but it really was a case of same old, same old at Honda. Rubens qualified 4th, but was passed by both Toyotas at the first stop, and that was all she wrote. Anonymity and lack of genuine race pace is the hallmark of Honda, in much the same way this year as it has been in the past. After Alonso’s second stop, despite the radio encouragement for Rubens to have a go at the Renault, was there ever any hope that he could manage it?

Arguably, that 6th place (or better) should have been claimed by Villeneuve, who once against retired out of a solid points-paying position, this time through another BMW engine failure. The Canadian has truly impressed this year, with his attitude as well as his driving, but although he has had the better of Heidfeld for pace quite often, it’s the German who has snatched the results and got the points on the table, as was the case with Nick against Webber at Williams last year.

Red Bull and Coulthard claimed their third points finish in four races. It was not a particularly brilliant DC weekend, having missed the first qualifying cut whereas Klien just made it, but excellent pit work at the second stop plus clever defensive driving put him ahead and kept him ahead of Nico Rosberg and Vitantonio Liuzzi. His 7th place was all the more significant because it lifted the team into 7th in the constructors’ table, ahead of the faltering Williams outfit.

At Toro Rosso, after Speed’s unlucky early exit, it was ironic that Liuzzi ended up with the final point for 8th. The Italian has had the better of the American all season until Indy’s spectacular reversal, but it’s Tonio who ends up with the team’s first ever point in its new guise. It was indeed a good weekend for the team, with tester Neel Jani showing good pace on Friday, although troubles in first qualifying plus an engine change left Liuzzi virtually at the back of the grid.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Takuma Sato
Blew a once-in-a-season opportunity

Not much improvement could be expected for Williams in the week between Canada and Indy, but they will be alarmed that both cars seemed so ill-handling when the Bridgestones on the Ferraris and Toyotas proved to be the better rubber this weekend. It’s hard to say what Webber could have done after his second blameless first-lap collision in three races, while Rosberg put in his least impressive showing in F1 thus far, looking all at sea in the infield section as Williams flounders badly in mid-season.

Williams have now gone five races without so much as a point - their worst drought since eight point-less races in the last seven races of 1984 and the first race of 1985! This for a team that’s more accustomed to talking about a drought of wins rather than a paucity of points. With Cosworth engines, a limited budget, and the consequences of torrid reliability, everyone knows this isn’t a great year, but to be stuck with only Toro Rosso, MF1 and Super Aguri behind on the constructors’ table? Now that’s embarrassing.

It was not to be. Albers was not on Monteiro’s pace and never threatened the Coulthard-Liuzzi-Rosberg battle before he eventually retired. Monteiro was running ahead of Coulthard at the restart after the safety car when he was taken out by Sato in an over-ambitious move. Perhaps both Tiago and Takuma had been boosted by the fact that they had come 3rd here at Indy in 2005 and 2004 respectively. Could they have maintained a pace that would have scored points? For Sato, probably not, but for Monteiro, maybe.

We’ll never know because they were never in the hunt for long enough. After what has been a thoroughly good season from the Japanese driver, this was a kamikaze move more like his displays in 2005. He was never even fully alongside the Midland. Sure, there were people who caused the first lap collisions, but this incident was the most silly, given the once-in-a-season opportunity to shine that was on the table. For that, it’s a return to 'Reject of the Race' status for Taku, as the teams look ahead to France.