Talking Points: Behind the scenes of the US GP

I've never been brave (or perhaps stupid) enough to bet on a Grand Prix result, but I'm kicking myself a bit after last weekend. Prior to Canada, Fernando Alonso had expressed his fear that Renault would lose out badly to Ferrari in the North American races, and it would be a case of damage limitation.

In fact, in Montreal it was the other way round, as Michael Schumacher overcame dire troubles on Friday to eventually salvage second place. However, there were signs that Alonso was right to be worried, and guess what? At Indianapolis, Ferrari found not a little but a lot more speed from the tyres, and Renault were left trailing.

Bridgestone gets it right

On Friday at Indy, Ferrari already had a good idea of how successful the weekend would be. Felipe Massa and Schumacher were fourth and sixth at the end of the second session, up among the third drivers who regularly top the Friday practice times. And while that didn't suggest dominance, the team knew how much fuel they were running and could extrapolate forward.

Speaking after having studied the times and done his sums, the team's technical director Ross Brawn was especially optimistic, in marked contrast to the glum reaction everyone in the team had on the first day in Canada.

"We'll wait and see and it's far too early to say," he said. "But our tyres are probably looking a bit soft today, which is a good sign, because when they look a little be soft on Friday, normally by Saturday and Sunday they come good. Symptoms we had with the tyres today give us confidence that the tyres will get better as the weekend goes on.

"In Montreal we had problems with the tyres on Friday, and it wasn't so clear whether they would really evolve in a good way over the weekend. But, in fact, here I'm much more confident that the tyres are going to improve."

Michael Schumacher during Saturday practice © Ferrari

The real story was told on Saturday morning, when the third drivers are out of the way and most people make some effort to run low fuel qualifying trim. Schumacher and Massa were first and second, and the nearest challenger - Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella - was nearly 1.2 seconds behind.

The rest knew what trim they had been running in and came to the conclusion that there was no point in even attempting to fight for pole, and that they'd have to aim for third. And Ferrari's long runs suggested that the dominance would carry over to the race.

Afterwards, Brawn admitted that everything went to plan, certainly as far as the tyres getting even better as the weekend went on.

"It did, it just developed as we hoped it would," he confirmed. "You get a feel for the tyres on the first day, and we had the grip - that was the important thing. Although there was some graining happening, as happened in the race, the graining disappeared, and it wasn't a problem.

"We had a very comfortable race, to be honest. You get the tyres right, and even on a circuit like this [where it's mostly straight] that's a huge advantage, and the tyres were perfect.

"It was much sweeter than last year. It shows the importance of the tyres, and the tyres were fantastic today. It puts the team back in contention, so it's a perfect result."

The simple fact is that Bridgestone got its sums right to a spectacular degree. Did Michelin err on the conservative side as a result last year's dramas? I'm sure they didn't consciously compromise performance, and it was just their turn to have an off-weekend, but it's an obvious conclusion to draw.

It was interesting to note that third drivers Robert Doornbos and Anthony Davidson both suffered some problems during their extended running on Friday. The French company took six different tyres (as opposed to the two last year), so it's difficult to know how that impacted upon top runners Renault and McLaren. The latter certainly had some serious trouble with lack of grip, which is why the silver cars were stranded in ninth and 11th, and why they ultimately got tangled up in a shunt.

At least we did get something of a race at the front, if only over the first stint, after Massa jumped ahead of his teammate at the start.

"Nothing was planned, we obviously just told them not get in the way of each other," said Brawn. "And that was all we asked. In fact, Michael dropping in behind Felipe gave Fernando a chance to go round the outside. Because the tyres are so good here, we had the grip at the start as well, and that makes a difference."

The fun ended at the first stop where, despite stopping earlier, Schumacher managed to sneak ahead. After that it really was a demonstration run for the two red cars. Our only hope was that Schumacher might slow down and try to stage a photo finish once again...

Ferrari teammates Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa lead the Renaults of Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella © XPB/LAT

The gap between Alonso and Schumacher in the world championship is 'only' 19 points now, and a lot can still happen in the remaining eight races. I doubt if even the most optimistic Ferrari fans think that Alonso can be beaten, but at least Schumacher can keep him honest and, with luck, keep the title battle alive until we leave Europe. Renault still have a useful cushion in the constructors' championship, but Ferrari are keeping the pressure on, and that of course is when mistakes can happen.

"We're reasonably optimistic," said Brawn of the next race in France. "Again, it's down to the tyre war. I think the cars are probably quite similar, and it's a question of how the tyres work. There's a big test in Jerez this week, so let's hope."

Back to front at Renault

The other major point of interest was Alonso's uncharacteristic struggle to get on the pace. Even Ferrari hadn't expected him to lag so far behind his teammate through the weekend.

"We were surprised, so obviously he had problems," said Brawn. "Giancarlo was much more competitive. Presumably they were a little bit out of sorts today, but I can't imagine that's going to carry on for the rest of the year, so I'm sure we'll have a tougher battle. But at least it's swung the other way now."

Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds admitted on Saturday afternoon that Indy simply wasn't Fernando's circuit, for reasons no one in the team could really explain. He struggled against Jarno Trulli a couple of years ago and against Fisichella last year, and again this time he just couldn't get a handle on the place. Throw in a bit of a tyre disadvantage, and he was all at sea, at least by his own stellar standards.

That said, the Spaniard still brought the car home fifth and salvaged four points. Just as at Monaco last year, he showed he could make the best out of a bad situation, and that of course is the sign of a true champion.

As ever luck went his way: Ralf Schumacher gifted him a point later in the race, and who knows how many of the first-lap crashers - Jenson Button, Kimi Raikkonen, Juan Pablo Montoya and Nick Heidfeld - most, if not all, running the one-stop strategy that worked so well for Jarno Trulli - might have finished ahead of Alonso.

It's interesting to note while Fernando is used to easing off and saving his engine in the closing laps, on this occasion he set his best time on the penultimate lap. He was obviously aware that his V8 was coming to the end of its life (Fisichella had a new unit and correspondingly had to protect it), but I suspect that he was also trying to make a point.

While Alonso didn't quite hit the sweet spot this time, Fisichella did. This sport is all about getting all the elements right, and the Italian has struggled to do that at times. Twice this year when he's started on the front row something has gone horribly wrong. This time, it all just fell into place for him and, buoyed by the security that comes with his extended contract, he was flying.

He was certainly pretty chuffed when I caught up with him as he prepared to leave the circuit on Sunday night.

Giancarlo Fisichella, Renault R26, 3rd place © LAT

"I did my best, and I think that was the best result I could do today with our pace - which was good, but not good enough to beat Ferrari," he smiled. "It was important to overtake Fernando, because I was quicker than him. It was important to push and go to the end. I made no mistakes at all."

Even he couldn't pinpoint why he had been so far ahead of Alonso.

"I have no idea. You know, sometimes I am just comfortable in the car, and I'm able to be quicker than him. It's a good time to do it, and it's really important for the next race, which is our home Grand Prix. I'm also very happy for the new contract I've signed for next year."

The Trulli Express

Oddly enough, Indy was also a great weekend for the other man on whom Lady Luck so rarely seems to shine. Jarno Trulli has taken a lot of stick over the past couple of years for making life difficult for those stuck behind him, and the Italian certainly didn't get his 2006 season off to a good start.

After finally scoring his first points of the year in Canada, the Italian made amends in Indy with a brilliant drive to fourth, one that gave his critics food for thought. And not too many people were complaining about being held up...

Initially it looked as though his usual bad luck had struck when he didn't make it through the first qualifying session, the legacy of a highly unusual problem. The central rear element of his TF106B had worked loose - it had not broken or failed in any way - and the perplexed Toyota team could find no reason why it happened. The result was the car bottoming heavily round Turn 13, and there was not enough time to sort it within the session.

It was changed before the race, and Trulli started from the pitlane with an ultra heavy fuel load. There are certainly worse races to attempt a one-stopper, and we've seen many times in the past that running long works really well at Indy. Jarno was particularly optimistic on race morning, so good did he feel the car would be, that he felt certain he'd get into the points. Given the low attrition rate at most venues, that was quite a claim.

Good fortune smiled on Trulli, as Juan Pablo Montoya and Christian Klien did their thing in the first two corners, and Jarno arrived from his pit start to see wreckage all over the place and, most importantly, no sign of a red flag. He was straight up to 13th place, having gained nine places without even getting up to full speed. Nice one!

Takuma Sato's ridiculous lunge at Tiago Monteiro on the restart helped him further, and he also got straight past Tonio Liuzzi to go 10th at the end of the first flying lap. He passed David Coulthard on lap 8 and then Nico Rosberg on lap 10 to put himself in the points, as promised. As things turned out, both men were even heavier than the Toyota man and were also running one-stoppers.

On lap 24, Trulli moved up to sixth as Rubens Barrichello pitted and Jacques Villeneuve retired. When the front-runners made the first of their two stops, only the Ferraris were far enough ahead to actually stay in front of Trulli, so that left him third for the middle of the race. By now the opposition had woken up to what he was up to, and that he would be a real threat come race-end.

Jarno Trulli, Toyota TF106, 4th place © LAT

When he finally stopped on lap 39, he dropped briefly to seventh, but Toyota knew that he would pick up some of those ahead when they made their second stop. In the end he came within a whisker of getting down to Turn 1 in front of Fisichella, when the Renault man came in on lap 53, but that still left Trulli in a more than respectable fourth place.

Trulli was in a buoyant mood afterwards. "As I said yesterday and also this morning, my chance to get in the points was very high," he beamed. "I knew it, because genuinely the car was very quick, so all I had to do was to go out there and push.

"I was lucky as well, sometimes luck helps, and I managed to finish fourth, fighting for the podium, and I just missed it for one second, I would say, because Fisichella got in front of me just for one second.

"At that stage, at the end of the race, there was no point to attack him. I had an engine that has to do one more race, so I slowed down. I had very old tyres, but everything was looking pretty good.

"It was very quick all through the race. There was a bit of question mark at the beginning, because I didn't know about the set-up - we never ran the car so heavy. But I knew we had a quick car, I knew we had a big chance today, with a bit of luck, and in the end it worked out."

Trulli had no doubts about where he might have finished had he started from a representative grid position: "Probably third - or in the middle of the accident - so you never know!

"I have to say that sometimes luck helps. Today was a good day for me, everything worked out pretty well. It's a shame that I lost the podium, but we have to accept that starting from the pitlane, it was an unbelievable result.

"All I can say it that before I just had a terrible time, everything was going wrong, and again yesterday it was going wrong. But once more I showed that I never give up. I know that if I've got the car, I do the job."

At times this year Toyota have struggled to get the best out of their new relationship with Bridgestone. Australia, where Ralf Schumacher finished third, was a rare example - indeed, Toyota made a much better choice than Ferrari.

But Indy showed that the team are really getting their act together, and just bolting any old Bridgestones on was not a guarantee of success, as Williams proved. Since Monaco, the revised TF106B has been quietly impressive. Mike Gascoyne may be long gone, but its form is a testament to his unusual strategy of bringing out the original car early and following it with a B version that incorporated a load of modifications. A case of I told you so, perhaps...

"It's definitely a good step forward," said Trulli. "And the team have been working really hard to improve the performance, and Bridgestone as well, they look very competitive. The package in general is getting better and better.

Jarno Trulli © LAT

"Here, for sure Bridgestone were dominant, and all I can say is they are working very hard, and they always give us a competitive tyre. So in some races Bridgestone will be better, and in some other races Michelin will be better, but at the end of the season more or less it will be similar. We have to get advantage where we can. Every race has got a different story, so let's go to Magny Cours and see where we are."

Even if Alonso does resume his surge towards the title come France, there will still be plenty to watch behind. Toyota and BMW are both making progress, and who knows what's happening at Honda. There's still a lot to play for.