Between the lines though, Schumacher ‘s weekend was far from a success, the German once again trounced by team-mate
Jarno Trulli, who qualified tenth compared to Schumacher’s 18th – the third race in succession he has missed the Q1 cut.
Although he managed to salvage a point, with rumours of replacement gathering pace, Schumacher needs his season to get considerably better, starting off with the United States Grand Prix.
Sadly for him though the race has rarely been a favourable one, experiencing high-speed accidents in 2004 and 2005, the latter of which kick-starting the infamous Michelin-boycott of that year. Nonetheless, Schumacher is confident things will start picking up.
"As the home of American motor racing, Indianapolis is a special venue and it has a special atmosphere to go with it. Unfortunately it has never been a very lucky track for me and I have had a couple of incidents that I would prefer to forget. Now I will look to put those behind me with a more positive visit to the venue. The main challenge of the Speedway's
F1 circuit is to balance the set-up of the car.
“We have to reach a good top speed along the banked start-finish straight into the first corner while keeping the car stable through the slow and twisty infield section. This season has been a struggle for me but I remain confident that we can turn our form around. We scored a point at Montreal and
Toyota has a strong record from its races at Indianapolis so we will hope to give the team a boost with a good result on Sunday."
By contrast, Indianapolis has been a happy hunting ground for Trulli over the years, finishing fourth from 20th in 2004, qualifying on pole for the ill-fated 2005 race and finishing fourth again from the pit lane last season. It is these stats that make the Italian confident an equally good result this year.
