American Grand Prix Review

A royal stuff-up by Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello, this. Aiming impromptu for the ultimate formation finish, perhaps even the dead-heat, they got it wrong - just - and the Brazilian walked off with his fourth win of 2002 by 0.011s, thank you very much. This despite the fact that the World Champion had been clearly faster in practice and, on the same strategy, had out-driven his team-mate all race, making better use of his tyres and traffic and seemingly with a slightly better set-up on his car.

Poetic justice for Austria perhaps, and if anything that was the only redeeming feature of this mess. But truth be told, in the wake of the A1-Ring debacle, two wrongs don’t make a right, and it is exactly in the wake of the Austria legacy that Grand Prix racing will have become Formula Farce again because of this incident. If Ferrarigate had never occurred, then this Indy error would be seen as just that – a mistake made by two over-exuberant and over-indulgent drivers.

There has always been a tremendous aura surrounding the finish to the 1971 Italian GP, when Peter Gethin pipped Ronnie Peterson by 0.01 of a second, Francois Cevert by 0.09s, Mike Hailwood by 0.18s and Howden Ganley by 0.61s. It was, and still ought to be, regardless of what happened at Indianapolis, the closest finish of all time. It feels utterly ridiculous for this Ferrari cock-up to usurp its place in the record books, or even that of the 1986 Spanish GP, where Ayrton Senna beat Nigel Mansell by 0.014s.

The drivers’ protestations about how much Ferrari is a team effort these days as they tried to play down their gaffe was absurdly embarrassing. Schumacher winning by half a car-length would have been a safe finish. But by trying a side-by-side act, they risked dead-heating or a Barrichello win as happened. Either way, it would have totally undermined the value of a Grand Prix win, team effort or not. That’s what has happened now. And if that does not bring this ‘sport’ into disrepute, then I don’t know what will.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello
Stick to driving; give up the choreography!

Their antics took away from what had been yet another superb Ferrari demonstration. On a two-stop plan, both cars steadily pulled away from the rest of the field and had made up the necessary advantage by their first stops. Michael was imperious all weekend, whilst Rubens recovered from his crash on Friday at turn 13, a very Indy 500-style smash caused by a suspension failure, to hound Schumi all race, even if he lost out badly in traffic and probably would never have got by the German on the track.

The bizarre finish also took away from the other act of stupidity between team-mates during the race, namely the clash between Juan-Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher. We’ve said a lot recently about Williams’ woes and how they haven’t been consistently competitive, but the last two races have seen an additional worrying sign: the rebirth of the JPM-Ralf feud, which had always been downplayed in the past, and which seemed to have cooled altogether by the start of this season.

Patrick Head was pulling his hair out, and rightly so. Williams are having enough trouble matching Ferrari as it is; internal warfare is now the last thing they need. Both Head and Sir Frank Williams may love to see their drivers race each other, but even they would concede that in order to beat Maranello they need to take a leaf out of the Italians’ book. Even if team orders is against Williams’ philosophy (most of the time, at least), surely the simple idea of teamwork isn’t.

Rubens has tied up 2nd in the drivers’ championship, leaving JPM on 47 points, Ralf on 42, and David Coulthard on 41. DC has been fairly consistent without being particularly brilliant in 2002, and could sneak 3rd in Japan if the Williams boys trip over each other again. Apart from Monaco, this was perhaps the Scotsman’s best meet all season. 3rd in qualifying, he didn’t put a foot wrong in the race, stuck with the Ferraris after their first stop, and finished on the podium having got the better of Kimi Raikkonen all weekend.

So with the Ferraris 1st and 2nd again, DC 3rd and JPM 4th, with Ralf 16th and last having never recovered from needing to get his rear wing replaced, the top four finished pretty much as they started. And so too the rest of the field. There were only 4 retirements all race, and the unique configuration of the track meant that those on two stops could pass cars on the straight and eke out the advantages they needed, while the rest found themselves tightly bunched together, especially thanks for the Hungary-esque infield.

In the wash-up, the final results were not particularly interesting, although the racing looked good on television. Thanks partially to the decision to let international viewers get the digital feed. The spruced-up graphics (the first real graphic change since 1994), the additional camera angles (especially the one from the side of Schumi’s cockpit), and the more knowledgeable and alert direction was a revelation, even if there may have been just a little too much chopping and changing between different dices on the track.

With America’s idiosyncratic tobacco advertising laws prohibiting the display of Marlboro and Lucky Strike but allowing West, the most noticeable difference to BAR’s insipid hues was the big ‘Honda’ on the rear wing. After their sequence of blow-ups at Spa, Honda has shown definite improvement at Monza and Indy. And after his disaster here last year, when he started 18th behind a Minardi, Jacques responded. If the team can get both chassis and engine right, it bodes well for 2003 to see Villeneuve on-song again.

Less could be said of both Trulli and Villeneuve’s team-mates though. Jenson Button’s performances have fallen towards the end of the season, but that is almost certainly due to Flavio Briatore playing favourites, as is his way. Not for the first time this year Olivier Panis made a poor start and found himself mired towards the back of the pack. The Frenchman remains a good, steady racer, but for Toyota to get full value out of him for next year he must work on his qualifying and his use of launch-control starts.

Who knows where Eddie could have finished if he had started from the first few rows and Jaguar had put him on an attacking strategy. Instead, they were forced to load his car full of fuel, and Irv could be forgiven for not having his heart in it on race day, as he was forced to muscle it out against the likes of Panis and Mark Webber’s Minardi. De la Rosa meanwhile was the first retirement, providing some comic relief when he jumped over the fence and straight into the moat right behind it!

Speaking of Minardi, this was their most competitive outing for a while. Webber drove out of his skin to race against the Jaguars, perhaps in a bid to impress the Jag hierarchy for a drive next year, while even the lamentable Alex Yoong was not too far off the Aussie’s pace. Minardi’s spartan budget though is seeing parts being stretched to the limit though, and it was sad that of the four retirements, both Minardis would be amongst them.

Unobtrusive weekends for Jordan and Toyota, although both Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato drove quite forcefully on race day. Mika Salo appeared disinterested in qualifying, only starting 19th behind Webber, but was more lively in the race. Little to say about Sauber either. Nick Heidfeld has been consistently average of late, while Heinz-Harald Frentzen’s controversial return in place of Felipe Massa was a bit of an anti-climax, the German driving within himself and not particularly comfortable in the car.

Much has been said of whether or not Sauber or Massa should be allowed to get out of their penalty like that, and there seems to be no right or wrong answer. Similarly, the outrageous finish to this Grand Prix seems certain to provoke much discussion that will rage on for days. We write this less than four hours after the race concluded, as pundits all around the world gather together their thoughts, opinions and conclusions. The debate over the next few days should be very interesting indeed.