HOW MUCH IS 1/100 OF A SECOND ?

Ferrari conquers America: The unplanned photo finish

"That was like in the old go kart days. Suddenly one car was ahead, but you cannot plan such a thing. We had not known, who was first, until we reached the infield." Michael Schumacher, who will be 34 years of age in January 2003, was not thrown by Ferrari´s a little mistaken photo finish at Indianapolis. Shortly before the finish line the lead had changed several times nearly invisible between the two cars from Maranello. Finally Rubens Barrichello´s nose had been in front by some centimetres and 0.011 seconds. Niki Lauda´s analysis of the situation is clear like glass: "They have tried to score an ex equo victory, but they did not succeed doing so." Ferrari had conquered America like no other make in Grand Prix Racing before, also for their road cars (90 per cent of the total production in red livery) the USA are the most important market. Michael Schumacher had dominated all the practice sessions, the qualifying and also the race. His team mate scored the race win and the fastest lap after having sustained the typical Indianapolis accident in his first ever practice lap on Friday: Heavy crash into the wall, after a tyre had jumped off the wheel when passing the banking. For Saturday the mechanics constructed a completely new car out of a prepared monocoque making the Brazilian qualify second position. The official US Grand Prix newspaper had the headline Sweep for Ferrari on Saturday. Barrichello, who has got Italian origins and also an Italian passport (addtionally to the Brazilian one) for a while is vice champion 2002 after the 2002.

The Grand Prix track of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a circuit of absolutely contrasts: Super fast in the oval part, slow like the Hungaroring in the infield section. For this aerodynamic set up a compromise has to be found, that does not really exist for these circumstances. Added were changing weather conditions with rain on Friday morning and fog on early Saturday, but on Sunday the summer had come back to Indiana. Eddie Irvine, who had repeated his last races class performances with Friday´s free practice position no. 2, suffered most under the weather conditions. The warmer the temperatures, the slower the Jaguar Cosworth became. Heinz Harald Frentzen, who had replaced the at Monza hard punished Felipe Massa (ten positions back on the Indianapolis grid because of the Monza collision with de la Rosa) at Sauber Petronas, qualified 11th, but in the race he had pretty much problems with the cockpit designed for the small Brazilian. Also the other blue car from Switzerland with Nick Heidfeld remained without points in the USA. Also Toyota and Jordan Hondan saw the chequered with both cars but they also did not score any points. With 16 cars classified only four retirements were noticed, two of them by blown engines, but none caused by a spin or an accident. One of the engines exploded again was Kimi Raikkonen´s Mercedes Ilmor unit. The young Finn needs a lot of patience in 2002, because he retired for the 10th time this season. His team mate David Coulthard was pretty satisfied with 3rd place in the race. Jarno Trulli´s two points in fact secured the 4th constructors place for Renault and that in the first year after the return of the French manufacturer.

Actually Williams BMW also had won the vice title at the constructors´table (that does not exist officially in the sporting regulations of the F.I.A.), their co-owner and technical director Patrick Head, a really tough designer, who onced had worked together with the legendary Alan Jones, really got angry after the race. At the beginning of the second lap Juan Pablo Montoya had tried to overtake his team mate Ralf Schumacher outside. That guy was inside on his race line, but unfortunately a little too fast and with the right front wheel also on the kerb. Suddenly the Williams BMW got an oversteer and bumped into it´s sister car to cut off Ralf´s rear wing. One slow lap and the repair in the pits made the German drop back to the last place he was not able to fight away from through the whole race. Later Head declared: "It is absolutely inacceptable both team mates crashing each other" - and he announced tough consequences within the team. After all Montoya finished fourth place, in spite additionally coming 10 laps to early into the pits for his regular stop in lap 31, because one of his displays had mislead him.

How much a hundredth of a second is in metres or centimetres, depends on the circuit length, the average speed and the speed crossing the finish line. In Monza 1971 Peter Gethin (B.R.M.) had beaten Ronnie Peterson in the March Ford by 0.01 seconds, but time keeping had not been on thousandth at that time. In Jerez 1986 Ayrton Senna in the Lotus Renault had won 0.014 seconds ahead of Nigel Mansell (Williams Honda). More, exactly 0.050 seconds, Elio de Angelis (Lotus Ford) had been ahead of Keke Rosberg´s Williams Fordin Zelteweg 1982. Like in Monza 1971 also in Indianapolis 2002 the winner could not been noticed with the naked eye.

The third USA Grand Prix in the world´s capital of motor racing showed exciting sport with a dominating Michael Schumacher, a lot of overtaking in the whole field and a surprising final. Two times the leading Ferraris were involved in the heavy traffic when lapping in spite of their two-stop-strategy. Indianapolis 2002 also brought back the USA as a Grand Prix constructors nation. Ford will come back in their own rights in 2003 together with the Jordan team after a three years´absence. Ford´s subsidiary company Jaguar Racing makes a lot of good progress under the tough leadership of Niki Lauda in spite of the R3 racing car is still covered with problems. Sauber and Arrows sponsor Red Bull organize a young generation´s programme for American racing drivers under the rule of former Tyrrell driver Danny Sullivan, The Kentucky Kid. Und now also the veterans Phil Hill (World Champion) and Dan Gurney (Porsche´s only Grand Prix winner in 1962) publish plans for a US-American Grand Prix team. After all Dan Gurney has got a developed infrastructure available by his company All American Racing and their make Eagle for decades. With the Eagle Weslake V12 Gurney himself had won in Spa 1967 as a driver-constructor and at the beginning of the seventies he had exact plans for returning into Grand Prix Racing with a modified Formula A (F5000) chassis, but that had been killed financially by the first energy crisis. If the intentions of Hill and Gurney can be realized and what time is needed for, there are a lot of critical questions about. No doubt, that such a project would be good for the sport.

SARAH, YOU GO GIRL was a banner on one of the grandstands. That´s meant for Americas new sweetheart, the only 21 years old Sarah Fisher (see photoalbum), who shows excellent performances in the Indy Racing League competing only on oval tracks. As the first ever woman in a top Grand Prix car she drove some demonstration laps with the Silver Arrow McLaren Mercedes MP4/17 using Coulthard´s and Raikkonen´s spare car. Niki Lauda of the Jaguar team invited her for a testing session under real conditions. Only one woman in history, Desirée Wilson from South Africa, had been able to win a Formula 1 race, but it has been no Grand Prix, but a round for the British Formula One Championship. And also only one woman had been able to drive into the points of the Worldchampionship. That had been in the horror Grand Prix of Barcelona in 1975 and the Italian`s Lella Lombardi (who died of cancer at the age of only 50 years) real first name was Maria Grazia.

Klaus Ewald

© 2002 by researchracing

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