2004 United States Grand Prix comments

Ferrari takes 1-2 again.

Man, what a strange race. It started when Juan Pablo Montoya couldn't get his Williams-BMW to start on the grid for the warm up lap. He jumped out of the car and sprinted in to the pits to get the second car. He started the race from pit lane and ran 57 of the scheduled 73 laps before the stewards black flagged him for not having a proper sticker in the car. Now, this was something the officials knew the minute he got in the car and, as the TV commentators said, they should have stopped him from leaving the garage let alone run 57 laps.

Then there was an accident at the first turn that took out 4 or 5 cars. A few cars blew tires on the shrapnel that was left on the track from the accident. The worst wreck was when Ralf Schumacher lost a tire and spun into the wall at over 300kmh. He was sitting in his car for over 15 minutes before they got anyone out to him. And the real strange part is that they didn't red flag the race. Even with the safety car out they ran through nearly 10 laps under the caution. Thank $DEITY Ralf is alright. Seems he's got a bruised back but is planning on ruinning in the French GP that's in 9 days 6 hours 30 minutes away (as I write this).

With all the attrition there were only 9 cars running at the end of the race compared to the 20 that started. One of the big happenings was that Minardi-Cosworth got their first F1 points in decades and Zsolt Baumgartner became the first Hungarian to score F1 Championship points. Takuma Sato also had a big day. For the first time in three or four races he didn't blow the engine in his BAR-Honda. Not only did he finished the race running, but he also gained his first podium ever. I can see good future potential in this kid.

The Schumacher/Barrichello 1-2 finish was the 6th or 7th of the season for Ferrari (to tired and lazy to look it up). Ferrari also moved within one win of ting Ford for the engine manufacture with the most total F1 wins, ever.

Now it's on to the July Sumo Basho. Gotta start making my picks for the Cyber games.