If the American fans that gave Indianapolis and
Formula One a second chance were looking for something different this season, they only got part of what they hoped for as
Ferrari again romped to a 1-2 result.
Michael Schumacher duly took his fifth USGP win at the Brickyard, but was made to work for it, at least visually, as team-mate
Felipe Massa made the better start from row one and headed the polesitter for the best part of 30 laps. After the first round of pit-stops, however, normality was restored, with Schumacher not headed thereafter.
The main talking point of the race was the absence of several cars after the opening lap, but the story was, thankfully, a little different to the farce that took place in 2005. This time, however, the consequences could have been more serious than the mass pull-out of twelve months ago, and it had nothing to do with tyres.
Instead, seven cars were eliminated in a brace of first corner shunts, the most serious seeing
BMW Sauber's
Nick Heidfeld sent into a series of barrel-rolls after being clipped by a combination of
Kimi Raikkonen and
Jenson Button. The Finn had already been hit up the rear by
McLaren team-mate Juan Montoya - who claimed that Raikkonen braked more heavily than he had been expecting - and was left with nowhere to go as Button tried to pass around the outside of turn two. Heidfeld was an innocent victim of their touch, as was
Scott Speed - who was trying to pick his way past the initial accident when he was collected by the spinning Raikkonen. Further back, Christian Klien spun into turn one, and was collected by Franck Montagny and
Mark Webber, the Frenchman enduring yet another short race for
Super Aguri.
