Skill Could be Decisive Factor at Indy

Sunday's Indianapolis Grand Prix will go a long way to deciding whether Mika Hakkinen or Michael Schumacher is the best driver in Formula One.

McLaren's Hakkinen leads Schumacher, in his Ferrari, by two points with just three races remaining this year, including the first grand prix in the United States since 1991.

Both drivers know intimately the strengths and weaknesses of their opponent and his car, but Indianapolis is an unknown quantity for the two double world champions and their teams.

Much will depend on the drivers' innate skill - and how the two teams adapt to a track that combines the fastest straight in Formula One, a tight infield and the first banked corner at a grand prix since 1961.

"From what I have heard our first grand prix at Indianapolis looks like being quite a challenge," said Schumacher.

"The combination of the speedway banking and the very fast straight, along with the tight infield section, will be a new one when it comes to setting up the cars.

"Straight-line speed will be vital for overtaking at the end of the straight, but the cars will need a lot of downforce through the infield. It will be tricky to find the right compromise."

Hakkinen, champion for the past two years, has a slight advantage over his German rival, being one of only three drivers here who have driven in a U.S. grand prix. The Finn's F1 career was born in the USA nine years ago at Phoenix.

"For me, it is nice to go back there and race again," said Hakkinen. "We don't know what it is going to be like, but we do know it will be exciting."

None of the drivers, except Heinz-Harald Frentzen of Jordan who drove some demonstration laps in a road car, has even seen the new circuit and no one has tested it in an F1 car.

Villeneuve Returns

Canadian Jacques Villeneuve, the only former Indianapolis winner in the field (he won the Indy 500 in 1995), is relishing the chance to return to "one of the centres of open-wheel racing" but regrets the race will not be on the full oval.

"It should be great, but I hope the American fans understand that it is a different type of event on a road course." A sell-out crowd of 250,000 spectators is expected.

Grip will be another headache for the teams and Bridgestone have prepared a harder compound tyre to allow for the unusual G-forces on the tyre walls caused by the banking.

"It will be like the Indy 500 on one side of the track and Monaco on the other," said a Bridgestone engineer.

How successfully Ferrari and McLaren adapt in practice will be vital but much will also depend on Schumacher's state of mind after his tearful reaction to victory at Monza two weeks ago.

His win, ahead of Hakkinen, pulled him level in the record books with Brazilian Ayrton Senna with 41 grand prix wins, leaving only Frenchman Alain Prost, on 51 wins, ahead.

Schumacher admitted after the race, in which a fire marshal was killed after a multiple collision on the opening lap, that emulating Senna had deeply affected him and he broke down in tears at a post-race news conference.

The Brazilian, killed in 1994, won the last U.S. grand prix on the way to the drivers' title, driving a McLaren and pushing Alain Prost's Ferrari into second place.