Formula One/US Grand Prix: Not for the first time this season, early hopes of a challenge to Ferrari's dominance evaporated into thin air yesterday, appropriately in the burning heat of an Indiana summer. Instead, Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello notched up another commanding 1-2.
BAR's Takuma Sato finished a superb third to claim his first podium, his team-mate Jenson Button having dropped out of that position.
It was, however, another disastrous weekend for the BMW Williams outfit, only a week after their drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya were disqualified from the Canadian grand prix for racing with illegally large brake cooling ducts.
Yesterday's reasons for retirements were rather more dramatic, with Ralf Schumacher crashing heavily into the pitlane wall at 165 m.p.h. Fortunately, the German escaped with nothing more serious than a bruised back.
His team-mate Montoya had taken over the spare Williams car prior to the start, after his own suffered technical failure. This was entirely against the rules, yet the Colombian was still allowed to run until lap 58 of the 73-lap race before finally being black-flagged and disqualified. This extraordinary state of affairs reflected either pressure from the race's promoter and sponsor to allow the former Indy 500 winner to perform in front of his fans, or a curious unfamiliarity with the rules by both the Williams crew and race stewards.
At the start, Barrichello had made a copybook getaway while his team-mate neatly steered left to block any chance of Sato coming through from the second row as the pack sprinted toward the first right-hander. The Japanese duly slotted in behind Schumacher, but as they braked Fernando Alonso's Renault speared down the outside from ninth place, to grab third.
Back in the pack, a multiple collision eliminated Felipe Massa's Sauber, Christian Klien's Jaguar, Giorgio Pantano's Jordan and the Minardi of Gianmaria Bruni and brought out the safety car.
Upon its withdrawal at the start of lap six, Michael Schumacher positioned himself perfectly coming out of the final corner to draft past Barrichello as they stormed down the start-finish straight.
So Schumacher led Barrichello by 0.8 seconds at the end of lap six, with Alonso hard on their tail and promising a fight. Barely a couple of laps later the Spaniard suffered a right-rear tyre failure when approaching turn one at 200 m.p.h., pitching his Renault sharply into the concrete retaining wall and out of the race.
Not long after Ralf Schumacher spun and then slammed backwards into the retaining wall, before bouncing back into the middle of the circuit. For the second time the safety car was deployed, the FIA medical car being forced to complete a full lap before stopping alongside the wrecked Williams in which Schumacher was still sitting, clearly shaken but able to reassure his pit crew that he was in one piece - although winded and bruised.
Most of the field took the opportunity to pit for fuel and tyres but both BAR-Hondas stayed out, with the result that when the field was unleashed again, Sato and Button were running right up behind Michael Schumacher's Ferrari. The Japanese driver kept his enthusiasm well under control and drove with impressive poise as he shadowed and pressured the world champion for the next few laps. But it did not last.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)