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Race Name: United States Grand Prix
Circuit Name: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Circuit Length: 2.607 miles
Race Length: 190.3 miles 73 laps
Lap Record: Michael Schumacher 1m11.473s
Record Pole: Michael Schumacher (Ferrari F2002), 1’10”790 (2002)
Last Year’s Pole: Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren MP4/17D), 1’11”670 (2003)

Alex Wurz's View

"As you cross the famous yard of bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, you reach the fastest speed on the circuit, 320kph in seventh gear as you head down towards turn one. Braking dramatically, your speed drops to 120kph in third gear for the 90-degree right hander, which takes you off the oval and onto the infield section of the track. ‘The circuit immediately flows into a sharper left-hander, which is negotiated at 115kph still in third gear.

Accelerating out of the corner, you sweep through the slight right hand curve, reaching 210kph in fourth gear that leads you into turn four. This long right hand corner is taken at 128kph, also in fourth gear. On the exit, a short burst on the throttle sees you reach 225kph on the approach to turn five. Dabbing the brakes, this left hander is taken at 168kph in fourth gear. Another short spurt of acceleration and you reach turn six. Braking hard to a speed of 120kph in third gear, this double left-hander sweeps you round 180-degrees and is immediately followed by the sharp right of turn seven, which is taken at 112kph in second gear.

Leading on to the back straight, you must take the right line out of the corner to be able to maximize your speed along the straight. Accelerating hard, you reach 296kph in sixth gear before dropping down the gears to take the 90-degree left-hander at the end of the straight, at 120kph in third. You then enter the tight s-bend complex of turns nine and ten. The tight right-hander of nine is taken at 75kph in first gear, with your speed increasing slightly to 80kph in second gear for the following left-hander. Accelerating away along another short straight, you reach 200kph in third gear before braking to 128kph for the right hand curve of turn 11.

As you accelerate out of the corner, your line is vital as it leads into turn 12, the point where you rejoin the oval, and the start of the fastest section of the track. You must maintain your speed as you take the sweeping right-hander, at 248kph in fourth gear. You then continue to power up through the gears as you negotiate the long right-hand banking of turn 13, reaching speeds of 305kph in seventh gear before the track flattens out for the long start-finish straight.

With full-throttle being maintained for up to 20 seconds, the longest full throttle time of any circuit on the calendar, you reach 320kph in seventh gear as you cross the finish line."

Jenson Button's View

“I approach the first corner at the maximum speed I reach on the circuit, which is around 325 km/h, obviously in top gear. The first right-hand corner is quite tight, and I have to brake very hard in order to get my speed down to around 115 km/h, and drop down to 2nd gear. I hold 2nd gear through turn 2, but am able to increase my speed to about 130 km/h. Turn 3 is actually taken flat and presents no problems: I will apex in 3rd gear at 190 km/h. Turn 4 is extremely difficult, as I will approach it in 4th gear at 240 km/h but need to brake deep into the corner with a lot of lateral acceleration on the car, getting down to 135 km/h in second gear. I need to be very careful not to lock the inside front wheel under braking for this corner.

Exiting turn 4, I can quite easily take turn 5 flat, at between 240 and 255 km/h in 4th gear. I actually reach 265 km/h, still in 4th gear, before approaching the very long turn 6. This is taken in 2nd gear at around 120 km/h, but it is an extremely long corner through which I will be experiencing over 2g lateral acceleration for around five seconds. Before turn 7, I will only just reach full throttle at approximately 170 km/h before braking again, and going through this turn at around 110 km/h. I will be looking for a clean exit onto the back straight, along which I will reach just over 300 km/h in 5th gear before going into the next, very tight part of the circuit.

At the end of the straight, I will need to drop down to around 105 km/h in 2nd gear for turn 8, and will briefly touch 150 km/h in second gear before turn 9. This is the tightest corner on the circuit, and I will take it in 1st gear, apexing at just 60 km/h. I can hold 1st gear right up to turn 10, reaching around 100 km/h and then dropping back to just under 70 km/h for the corner itself. The short straight leading to turn 11 will see me in 3rd gear, at around 210 km/h, before braking for the corner, which I will take in 2nd gear at 135 km/h.

The exit of turn 11 is the most critical part of the circuit, as it leads back onto the speedway section, which although it contains two corners is taken flat out. The first of these I will take in 4th gear at 250 km/h and accelerate all the way through, exiting in 5th gear at 295 km/h.

The final corner, which is steeply banked, will see me in 6th gear at around 315 km/h before coming back to the pit straight. I am completely flat on the throttle from the exit of turn 11 right through to turn 1: this represents over 22 seconds of full-throttle running, which, along with the run from La Source to Les Combes at Spa, is the longest of any circuit we go to."

The Track's F1 History

Although this year’s Grand Prix is seen as a big adventure though there have been 43 races staged in the US since the start of the World Championship (throughout the latter half of the seventies and early eighties there were two US Grand Prix, one on the West Coast and one on the East Coast!).

The last US Grand Prix happened in 1991 at Phoenix. Senna won both though Alesi was looking good both years in the Tyrell in 1990 and the Ferrari in 1991. Before that Keke Rosberg won the previous US Grand Prix which was held in Dallas in 1984. The race was famous for being run under such hot conditions that it was started early (by Larry Hagman aka J.R. Ewing!) and was run as the circuit literally melted under the car’s wheels.

At the same time Detroit was holding races from 82-88 on what was quite a decent circuit. Before that a car park was the unlikely venue for the 1981 championship showdown in Las Vegas while Long Beach in California held West Coast races from 1976 to 1983. Watkins Glen also staged races around the same time from 1961-1980 and these races became as firmly entrenched in the calendar as Spa, Silverstone or Hockenheim in their time. The first two races in the States happened in 1959 and 1960.

In 1959 the circus went to Sebring, a famous sportscar circuit which is set in the middle of swampland, while in 1960 the organisers realized their mistake and set it at the Riverside circuit, a now closed race circuit on the edge of the desert.

Formula 1 returned to the U.S. in 2000. That year's race was basically a Schumacher benefit gig. There was controversy before the start as Ferrari managed to get the grid moved back in order to stop the cars' wheels spinning over the bricks on the start/finish line. DC got a lead away from the line but he had jumped the start and his stop go penalty left him 5th. Hakkinen's engine blew while he was pressuring Schumacher and after that Schuey had an easy run to the flag (almost to easy in fact as he had a spin due to losing concentration!). Frentzen and Villeneuve had a ding dong battle for third (which Frentzen got eventually) while Button and Trulli had another coming together.

In 2001 this race could well be billed as the race that no one wanted to go to. The teams were unhappy about running at Monza and Montoya's first win was the only vaguely bright spot in the most somber weekend since Imola in 1994. Apart from the grief and worry caused by the terrorist attacks in the US there was the near fatal accident to Alex Zanardi that ended up costing the popular Italian his legs in Germany. To cut a long story short no one wanted to race. When you consider that the news that double world champion Mika Hakkinen was opting out of Formula 1 was greeted with little more than a murmur.

2002 was a pretty boring affair with Ferrari dominating proceedings. The McLarens tried to do battle with Barrichello after the Williamses collided with each other putting themselves out of contention. In the end Schumacher tried to get a photo finish but instead gifted the race to Barrichello after Hakkinen's fighting drive was stymied by an engine failure. Last year's race was an altogether more exciting affair. With the championship so close Montoya was silly enough to make a ramming attack on Barrichello's Ferrari. Although his move was opportunist at best few thought that he deserved the subsequent drive through penalty meted out to him by the stewards. The ever improving BARs showed again that they were stepping up to the big time as Jenson Button led the race for several laps before being taken by eventual winner Michael Schumacher. Button's race would end shortly afterwards with an engine failure. Kimi Raikkonen finished behind Schumacher and was followed home by Heinz Harald Frentzen who demonstrated that he still had it in him with a fighting podium place. Further back Justin Wilson picked up his first (and so far only) point for Jaguar.

This race is going to be met with little more enthusiasm and many of the drivers are not happy about driving while so many more important things are happening elsewhere. This is a great pity and it seems that maybe Formula 1 ought to realize that, at the end of the day they are just boys with toys rather than serious news. The Grand Prix circuit at Indianapolis is made up of part of the famous oval course coupled with a tight and twisty new infield section. The circuit itself is a bit of a mixed bag as far as set-up goes. The infield section is almost like Monaco in its nature while almost half the course is made up of incredibly fast, banked turns. This year the date has been switched from the end of the season to being back to back with the Canadian Grand Prix in the mid season. Quite how this will effect the track temperature and other conditions is uncertain. It will also be interesting to see how the ticket sales are going now that the race has been here for a few years.

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