Barrichello: Ferrari Not to Blame

Although every team other than Ferrari agreed on Sunday morning that a chicane should be built prior to Turn 13 in a bid to lower speeds through the banked corner for the Michelin teams, the matter never got Ferrari's approval because the Italian team believed the matter was purely the responsibility of the FIA.

And although some have therefore claimed that Ferrari should take some responsibility for the turn of events, Barrichello insists that the team were innocent and he has rubbished claims that a chicane would have been any safer.

"The circumstances made it bad day for all," said the Brazilian who finished second behind Michael Schumacher. "Looking at what's happened it seems it's all Ferrari's fault, but it isn't. A lot of people didn't seem to understand that.

"Michelin was saying that putting a chicane on the oval would have allowed for safer racing, but I don't agree with that. To put a chicane for the race, without anyone practicing with it, would have been very dangerous.

"We'd be finding the braking area in the race and that could start an accident."

When asked why then, if he believed Ferrari did the right thing, was there no celebration on the podium for the team's first victory of the season, Barrichello said: "It was a race with six cars. I'm used to things like we had in Rio, with pre-qualifying and 36 cars trying to get to the race. Now to have six cars in a race is not something that can give anyone any pleasure.

"This is not the F1 we want to see. In the US F1 is not very popular and this won't make it better."

Barrichello explained, however, that the widespread controversy over the event should be put into context - especially with some people claiming it was a tragic day for Formula One.

"It was sad but not tragic," said Barrichello "Tragic was in 1994, today it's just sad."

Ferrari's head of communications Antonio Ghini also defended the Italian team, saying the chicane option was not viable.

"If the problem encountered by Michelin at Indianapolis happened to Ferrari or to Bridgestone, with the roles swapped around the world would have come down surely," he told Gazzetta dello Sport. "At best they would have told us to do the best we could.

"It's impossible and unacceptable that in F1 rules could be changed on Sunday morning, even proposing the creation of a temporary chicane in order to solve somebody's reliability problems. This way F1 becomes a farce.

"From Indianapolis it transpired with certainty that if the teams that didn't race complied to Michelin's more cautious settings, and if they limited performance, then they could have raced. But by forcing the situation in order to obtain the chicane on the banking, they engaged in an unacceptable arm wrestling match.

"Ferrari has always been legalistic, and when we've had problems with the tyres at the start of the season, we adapted to going more slowly."