Cooper Straight

Ferraris were on the front row of the grid and Ferraris finished first and second, and yet Indianapolis was a clear chance for the opposition to come out on top for once.

Tyre issues forced the Italian team to do the opposite of the strategy that won the Canadian GP, opting for three stops when the opposition Michelin runners were on two. The first safety car put even more pressure on, as laps ticked away and Ferrari could not take advantage of its light fuel load by opening up a gap. But then the second safety car allowed the team to not only get a 'free' stop but also eventually switch to two stops after all. Everyone in the camp could breathe a sigh of relief.

Once again, Ferrari's main rivals self-destructed. Jarno Trulli started from the back of the grid, Juan Pablo Montoya started (illegally) from the pitlane in a spare, Fernando Alonso and Ralf Schumacher crashed after tyre failures, and BAR made a bad call on pit strategy. There was nobody left to force Ferrari into tyre problems.

Through it all the red cars appeared to sail serenely to victory, although like a pair of ducks gliding across a pond, there was an awful lot going on below the surface...



A notable aspect of Indy was a clear demonstration of ruthless approach taken by Michael Schumacher. At the start you saw him moving one way and then the other in attempt to keep Takuma Sato behind. At the restart you saw his inspired change past his team mate on the straight which was legal by just 0.013s. And later on you saw his unsubtle block when Rubens, quicker on his new tyres, tried to pass.

Thanks to the sector time data that is only available to the teams after the race, here's a little example that you wouldn't have noticed. It shows why Michael wins when others don't.

When word of the second safety car came through, the leading runners were already into their next lap, so their times over the first sector of lap 11 are not particularly relevant. But when they got to the middle sector of the lap they were already under full caution and were thus obliged to be 'taking it easy.' These are the times of the top three runners:

Second Sector Times, lap 11

Michael: 29.283s
Rubens: 31.052s
Takuma: 30.778s

The fascinating thing is that on his previous lap Michael had run through this twisty bit of track in 29.321s. In other words he actually went faster knowing that there was a crash on the pit straight, and that he was now racing back to the pits for a critical stop.

So why didn't he get penalised? Well, in previous laps he had recorded marginally quicker sector times. So while he put his foot down when the yellows were out, he judged it well enough so that it wasn't quite his fastest sector of the race so far. Thus there was no offence...

In contrast you can see how the two guys immediately behind him backed off. Of course it's possible that Rubens slowed a little more than he would have because he knew he was also pitting. Since Michael had to be serviced first, the later he arrived, the less chance there was that he would actually have to stand still. And of course by slowing he might just hold up Sato and the rest...

Anyway, what really counts here is the third sector of the lap. Normally this is run in about 19 seconds, so the figures show just how much all those involved were compromised:

Third Sector Times, lap 11

Michael: 39.117s (including pit stop)
Rubens: 50.650s (stacked up stop and sluggish exit from pit)
Takuma: 38.816s (weaving past wreck on pit straight)

If you wondered how Michael pitted and yet still emerged in front of Sato, who didn't stop, here is the evidence. First, note that he was already some 5.2s ahead of the BAR at the end of the previous lap.

Then he gained a little more with that quick middle sector - as we saw, he was 1.5s up on the BAR. Finally, his entry into the pits, the stop and the exit took only 0.3s longer than Takuma spent on the track while negotiating the wrecked Williams. As he accelerated past the start/finish line, still in the pitlane, he was well ahead of Taku, who was on the track.

Even Ross Brawn admitted that he was surprised to see Michael get out still in front the way he did. But in effect Sato was penalised for doing the right thing.

As de facto race leader he was the first man to arrive at the crash scene next time round, and had to thread his way through all the mess. Under pressure for his recent antics, he couldn't afford to be seen locking up or dashing through without showing due caution.

He also had to find his own route through the debris without damaging his car or tyres - remember at this stage the safety car was waiting at the first corner, so there was no one to lead him through. When he accelerated away from the scene to join the safety car, Michael was already there...



It was obvious that BAR had made a huge tactical error in not stopping during the safety car. Admittedly, it was not an easy call, but in such circumstances it would have been worth at least covering the options and bringing one car in.

The team's initial reaction was that, since they had plenty of fuel on board, they should stay out. The thinking was that the Ferraris might get a 'free' stop, but on leaving the pits they would be caught in the pack. As we've seen, it didn't turn out that way. To be fair, who could have predicted that Michael would pit and still come out ahead?

Also, having seen the crash up close, and noted that Ralf was moving around, the BAR crew wrongly thought the cleaning up process would be rather quicker than it was. So there were sensible reasons for not stopping. Having said that there was a rumour that they did actually call Taku straight in, and he didn't come...

Had he pitted with the Ferraris, there's a good chance Sato would have won the race. Staying out was the worst possible scenario, and that was true even if Taku and Jenson had actually remained in front at the end of the safety car period.

They would have been quicker, on the restart, than the Ferraris. They had less fuel on board, and they could have opened up a gap as the red cars picked their way past any other non-stoppers who had managed to sneak ahead.

However, strategy would still have favoured the opposition. The extended safety car period used up so many laps that Ferrari soon realised that they were even better off than they thought. Michael could run so far with the fuel now on board that he could take on enough at his next stop to get to the flag. The only drawback was the need to manage the tyre situation carefully. In contrast BAR still needed two stops under green to make it home.

If the first call was understandable, where BAR really went wrong was not limiting the damage by bringing in at least one car as the safety car period dragged on. After a few laps of slow running it was obvious that the Ferraris were well set, and there was very little to be gained by plodding around behind Michael and then sitting behind him at the restart.

Jaguar initially opted to stay out, but the team wisely cut their losses and brought Mark Webber in towards the end of the safety car period. It put Mark to the back of the queue, but he was fuelled up and now able to run longer than anyone else in the field.

BAR should have done that too. Had Taku stopped at this stage he would have dropped to the back of the queue in 14th place, behind Webber. At the restart at the end of lap 19 he would have been only 11s behind leader Schumacher, albeit with 12 cars in between, and a lot of passing to do.

Taku eventually made his stop, under green conditions, at the end of lap 25. He still emerged behind Webber. But by the time he got up to speed out of the pits he was now a massive 29s behind Schumacher! He then found it very hard to get through the queue of cars that had built up, so the gap just grew.

It's impossible to say whether Taku would have done better than the third place he ultimately earned, but a late 'free' stop under the safety car would at least have got him closer to the Ferraris. Had he been able to exert pressure on them, and forced them to use their tyres harder, that might just have made the difference...



It's been well documented that Juan Pablo Montoya ran for 57 laps in an 'illegal' spare car before he was black flagged. The fact that he did so represents an extraordinary breakdown in the FIA's systems.

First, let's take a look at the offence. The rules state that, if he is allowed to take the spare, the driver has to be off the grid 15s before the start of the formation lap. It's nothing to do with when he gets out of one cockpit or into the other. If at the 15s mark he is still physically standing on the track, as opposed to clambering over the pit wall or dashing across the pit road, he is in trouble. An FIA source told me Juan was still in the car with 13s to go...

The FIA watches these things very carefully, mainly because of another offence which is rather more common. If any team member is still touching a car at the 15s mark, for example trying to get it started, a stop and go will result.

From his perch at the startline Charlie Whiting had a perfect view of proceedings, and Montoya's offence was duly noted. The next step was to report it to the stewards, who in normal circumstances would make a decision in a handful of laps.

It seems that because of the confusion caused by subsequent crashes, somebody forgot to move things along. Indeed, we didn't even see an 'incident involving car number 3 under investigation' on the timing screens until well into the race. That really should have been flashed up before the others finished their formation lap...

A secondary aspect is that someone in the Williams camp must surely have known that the offence has been committed. Team managers are well versed on the 15s rule, and go out of their way to ensure that the mechanics are off the car in time (and naturally they keep an eye on the opposition as well).

In the heat of the moment it was only natural to get the car out on the track at all costs, and then argue later. Any laps Juan managed before the black flag would be a bonus for the sponsors and all those Colombian fans. Of course if there had been an instant stoppage and a restart, all bets would be off, and Juan would have been allowed to race the spare come what may.

Naturally JPM was furious afterwards. He'd had a wasted afternoon, and realised that had he been involved in an accident, questions would have been asked. The FIA system clearly failed, but was Williams an entirely innocent party?

It's seems odd that drivers can be fined for running 1kph over the pit speed limit in practice, and yet a team can send a spare car into a race illegally and suffer no extra reprimand for so doing. It's a bit like a football team sending a 12th man onto the pitch and waiting for the referee to notice. Of course if the team genuinely didn't realise that Juan had evacuated the grid too late, then they're guilty of a major organisational lapse, since someone should be timing these things.

One can only presume that the beleaguered stewards thought it better not to throw stones...