United States Grand Prix Story (June 29, 2006)

The Indianapolis Renaissance

After a nine year gap, Indianapolis Motor Speedway built an infield course in order to host a United States Grand Prix. It would be the first ever non-oval event held at the Speedway.

In September 2000, a United States Grand Prix was keenly attended by over 200,000 spectators, and watched on Prime Time in Europe lead to it being one of the largest TV draws of the season.

Michael Schumacher won the inaugural event from pole, which was a Ferrari 1-2. Heinz-Harald Frentzen was third for Jordan. The drivers liked the fast layout, and it seemed F1 had found it's US home.

The 2001 United States Grand Prix was more memorable for it being the final commentary of Murray Walker in Britain. (Murray was a legend - see some of his quotes here). Mika Hakkinen won the race after overtaking the pole-sitter (Schumacher) towards the end.

2002 was controversial. At that year's Austrian Grand Prix, Schumacher's team mate Rubens Barrichello was ordered to slow down by his team whilst leading the race, in order to let Schumacher catch up and win. This would have helped Schumacher out in the championship. By Indy, Schumacher was already World Champion. So Schumacher returned the favour, intending to create a dead heat between the two of them. However, he got it slightly wrong, and came second to Barrichello by 0.011 seconds - the closest finish in F1 and Indy history, but due to the circumstances, this was scrapped from the records. Although the result stood.

2002 was also memorable for Pedro de la Rosa's incident. De la Rosa parked his stalled car next to the road leading to the pit. Upon getting out, he was told by the marshalls to jump over the barrier. He did so, and fell six feet into a small river. The incident was humourous to those watching on television, but not to de la Rosa himself, as he complained about the episode to the press afterward, saying the marshalls didn't tell him what was behind the barrier. He got over it.

In 2003, rain came. As usual, when it rains, Schumacher wins. He was helped as Kimi Raikkonen had poor wet tyres compared to Schumacher. Raikkonen was comfortably winning until the rain started. There were six leaders in the race, but three fell foul of the weather. This win almost gave Schumacher the World Title, as he only needed one point at Suzuka to win it. He struggled to eighth, but claimed the point.

Schumacher won again in 2004. Four of the field were involved in an accident on Lap 1. Schumacher had long since won the championship. The greatest cheers of the day came when Zsolt Baumgartner won a point for minnows Minardi. It was their first point for two seasons, despite being the last to finish the race. The retirements put them up in eigth.

It seemed that Indianapolis was destined to remain on the calendar for a long time. The fans loved it. The drivers loved it. It seemed that nothing could go wrong.

Tomorrow: Indianapolis 2005