The penultimate round of the 2002 World Championship saw little technical changes to the cars (with the exception of Toyota) but at the same time offered the teams the biggest set-up challenge of the season. Craig Scarborough reviews the cars as well as the teams' weekend

The United States Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway provided the teams with one of the biggest set-up challenges of the year, and therefore there was very little technical innovation on show, with just Toyota presenting a major update on their cars.

In fact, all teams are now directing all their design resources to the 2003 cars, the only work being carried out on the current car is the mapping of the aerodynamic and mechanical set-up to any new tyres from their supplier. Some teams are able to test components for the new car - and these may be simple items such as wiring looms or uprights - or they may be running major components, such as engines and gearboxes.

While the old or revised cars pound around the test track, back at the factory the new car is starting to come together. The aerodynamic philosophy has been frozen and all the major body parts are in the design process. Major items - such as castings for the gearbox and uprights - were signed off months ago to begin the long manufacturing process. Mock-ups for the engines are in place, as is the data expected for the radiator and airbox sizes.

As these parts come together, there is a repetitive routine of design, simulations for structural and aerodynamic efficiency, checks to ensure the parts will fit without interfering with each other, before the parts can go down to the workshops for production. While even at this stage the car is largely complete, it is not until the car's launch and first tests that all the parts will be ready and even then some parts - such as wings - will carry over from the old to the new car until the definitive designs are completed for the first race.

As a result of the lack of technical development, the grid and race result accurately reflected the team's relative pace on their tyres. The tyre battle largely went Michelin's way - the hotter conditions over the weekend favoured their prime (harder) tyre, and Bridgestone's customer teams were pushed off the front of the midfield. As with Monza, in order to get the best race pace out of the tyres, many drivers opted for a two-stop race strategy, where Indy has been traditionally a one-stop race.

At the end of a particularly hot race, there were only four retirements and only two from major engine blow ups - quite a feat, considering the engines are flat out for 23 seconds on the banked section.

Tyres

After rain came down in buckets all through Thursday night, the circuit was cleaned of all its rubber build up by Friday's first free practice, and the track was more abrasive than expected. Warmer weather and lots of running on the softer tyres for this race helped the track "rubber in" and the tyre manufacturers were seeing less wear on the smoothened surface.

The weather warmed up as the weekend wore on and qualifying saw competitive lap-times posted earlier in the session - in fact, only a few drivers were able to improve their own time in the dying moments of the session.

Michelin-shod teams opted for the harder compound tyre to cope with the pressures of a hotter race. Bridgestone's tyre was softer and this helped push several of the their customer teams into the top ten in qualifying, but also obliged them to run a two-stop strategy for the race.

Team by Team

Ferrari

Ferrari's weekend started with a bang. On Rubens Barrichello's first lap of Friday's free practice, as he entered the main straight, a problem on the left rear tyre - later pinpointed to a puncture - sent the Brazilian hard into the wall. The car was heavily damaged and Rubens was unhurt, but he subsequently did not take part in the remainder of the session. Teammate Michael Schumacher also refrained from running that session, until the cause of the accident was pinpointed.

In the afternoon session, Schumacher returned to the track while Barrichello could not use the spare car until qualifying and had to sit out the afternoon session as well. Schumacher ran the tyre assessment programme, and this may have been one of the reasons for the team's shared race strategy, in contrast to their more usual split strategies.

Saturday saw Barrichello return to the track in his repaired car and set about getting it to handle as he wanted. Both drivers had the Monza qualifying engine and had uneventful qualifying session, the softer Bridgestone tyre was working for the Ferrari and they were able beat their competitors to secure their first all-Ferrari front row since Hungary.

Williams

Williams ran an unchanged car for Indy, but did return to the more conventional curved wing after the flatter wing seen in Monza. Friday saw Ralf Schumacher spin in the morning session and, unable to stop on the wet grass, he gently bumped the barrier thus removing his rear wing. He then struggled to get traction and he drove across the grass as if in slow motion, but with the rear tyres spinning wildly. Ralf eventually made it back on to the tarmac and was able to return to the pits, where the rear wing was changed and ready for the second session.

With the harder option of Michelin tyre, Williams struggled to match the Ferrari pace in qualifying and ended up separating the McLarens for fourth and fifth - Schumacher being the slower, as he was not so happy with his car's set up.

At the start of the race, Schumacher once again got the jump on teammate Juan Pablo Montoya, and again there was trouble when attempts to reverse the position went wrong. The German spun on the inside as Montoya attempted to pass on the outside into turn one. Schumacher's car reversed into the Colombian's, and once more Ralf's rear wing was knocked off. He then had almost a full circuit to negotiate before entering the pits for a replacement.

A small pit blunder aside, Montoya was able to continue to fourth place while Schumacher ran his remainder of the race a lap down. Nonetheless, both cars ran on the pace and were able to secure for the team the second place in the Constructors' Championship.

McLaren

McLaren, just like Williams, dropped their flat Monza front wing in search of more downforce for the infield section at Indianapolis and returned to the familiar triple plane wing seen all year.

Trouble-free running on Friday was spent on race strategy and running tyres to make a decision for Saturday. But Saturday's first session saw Kimi Raikkonen go off the track and damage his front suspension, forcing him into the spare car for qualifying, and although the race car's repairs were completed during the session, the young Finn chose to remain in the T-car.

David Coulthard's hydraulic problem in the morning session forced the team to change his engine, a task they completed in time for qualifying. Coulthard was able to beat Montoya into third on the grid, and more importantly, he was able to maintain this position at the start of the race despite his car being full of fuel.

Raikkonen meanwhile was beaten off the line by Jarno Trulli's Renault. Soon after, the Finn suffered a misfire, and a faulty spark plug caused the engine to run on nine of its ten cylinders. This problem robbed the car of its top end power and Raikkonen was easily overtaken on the straights. After 37 laps, the engine finally gave way, blowing up in a cloud of blue smoke.

Renault

Friday saw gearbox troubles for Jenson Button; the team's two-way telemetry picked up the problem in the second session and radioed the Briton to pull over to protect the car. Jarno Trulli had no problems but was a little unhappy with the car's handling.

During Saturday's morning session, Trulli found a set of changes that would leave him much happier with the car. Button, on the other hand, struggled to get the car to work on both the infield and banked section of the track. Their respective fortunes would remain the same in the race as well, with Trulli finishing in the points after a strong race, while Button finished eighth after a low-key race.

Sauber

Heinz Harald Frentzen, subbing for Felipe Massa, was not comfortable in the Sauber the entire Grand Prix weekend, as he is much taller than the two drivers the car was designed around. His steering wheel was too close to him and his helmet protruded much further from the cockpit than the two normal race drivers, who barely appear to be able to see over the steering wheel. Moreover, Frentzen's seating position did meet the safety regulations but his helmet was clearly blocking part of the engine's air inlet behind the cockpit, and the interrupted airflow into the engine robbed the engine of a few horsepower.

On Friday, Nick Heidfeld felt the car was better than in the past two races, where Sauber appeared to have the wrong way on the car's set-up and ended up with nervous handling.

Both Frentzen and Heidfeld struggled with the car's handling on Saturday, being caught out with the changes in wind direction. Nevertheless, Frentzen directed some set-up changes and the warmer track brought two top ten grid positions for the team.

In the race, Heidfeld found the car's handling deteriorating with increasing understeer, and - unable to push any harder - he crossed the finish line in ninth. Frentzen had the opposite problem; oversteer was overheating his rear tyres. He blamed his inexperience with the chassis, but despite a run across the grass late in the race, the German ran the entire race distance, to finish in thirteenth.

Jordan

With both drivers happy with the car's balance, and with progress being made on race set-up and tyre choice, it was not such a hindrance that Takuma Sato lost time on the second Friday session, after damaging his car in a spin early on.

Sato's usual string of problems continued in Saturday morning's session, when his Honda qualifying engine let go. This obligated him to use a less powerful race spec engine for qualifying, which was fitted in less than thirty minutes between the sessions. Giancarlo Fisichella had a cleaner run and posted a time inside the top ten along with the other leading Bridgestone runners.

Considering Sato lost so much time during the weekend, his race performance was excellent. The new traction and launch control software moved him two places at the start, his car went well on low downforce setting, and he also posted the fastest straight-line speed of the race.

Fisichella bucked the Bridgestone two stop strategy and instead stopped only once on lap 37 for 11 seconds. He found the tyre inconsistent on the longer stints, although they came back to more neutral handling late in each stint.

BAR

On Friday, both BAR drivers suffered oversteer on the damp track, but this improved as the track dried and the car's set-up was tuned to the conditions. Jacques Villeneuve lost track time on Saturday morning with mechanical problems and still struggled with some oversteer, causing him concern for the race, but a lap to get up to seventh on the grid left him as best of the Bridgestone customer teams. Olivier Panis also had tyre-induced handling troubles, with the tyres behaving differently on each run.

In the race, the team opted for a two stop strategy in order to conserve the tyres but also because the car's handling on full fuel tank was not as good as on lower fuel levels. Villeneuve found that the car improves after 6-10 laps of fuel had been used, and he drove a spirited race to bring home his second points finish of the year. Panis didn't have such a clean run, his poor start lost him places and he then had a mechanical problem which was cleared up at his second. He ended the race outside the points, but nonetheless gave Honda its second consecutive reliable race finish - with all four Honda-engined cars making it to the finish line.

Jaguar

Friday passed without incident for the team and Eddie Irvine was commenting on the poor performance from the brakes, but otherwise found the car handling quite well on the initially slippery track. Pedro de la Rosa worked more on race preparation and didn't post competitive times like Irvine did.

But while the R3 worked well in the cooler, damper conditions of Friday, Saturday's rising temperatures found the drivers uncomfortable with the car's performance on the Michelins, as they lacked any grip.

Both drivers opted for heavy fuel loads on a one-stop strategy. The cars were performing better, even though the temperature has risen further. It was de la Rosa who was to post the race's first retirement with transmission trouble. Irvine persisted and with the Michelins working better and better was able to finish tenth.

Toyota

Toyota brought several new aerodynamic packages to Indianapolis. The first comprised of slimmed down bargeboards and smaller sidepod inlets, allied by new front wing endplates that were more rectangular in side profile.

The major change was the set up Mika Salo tried on Friday: it discarded the larger bargeboards ahead of the sidepods and instead used a Williams (also BAR and Jordan) style low forward mounted bargeboard, which nestled below the front suspension. A full width horizontal fin was placed ahead of the sidepods to smooth the flow under the car. As with BAR's revisions earlier this year, this marks a major change to the aerodynamic philosophy of the car and suggests that this direction may be taken up on next year's car.

The other major technical novelty for Toyota was bi-directional telemetry, used during a race weekend for the first time. This allows the team to make changes to the car's electronic based systems without the driver having to resort to controls on the steering wheel.

As with the Jaguars, Toyota went well on Friday with only a drive shaft problem interrupting Allan McNish's session. But come Saturday the drivers couldn't get a "feeling" for the car and lap times suffered. McNish said the car had improved but the understeer hampered his qualifying session, while Salo's pace was even slower and he ended up behind one of the Minardis on the grid.

In the race, the cars were heavy with a one stop fuel load, but Salo found the car better to drive in race trim. He had an engine misfire - which was cured by the new telemetry system - and he also had incurable hydraulic problems - although these didn't prevent him from finishing the race, albeit in 14th.

McNish had the worse of the technical problems - the steering would lock when turning right and made the handling inconsistent, yet he managed to haul the car home behind his teammate.

Minardi

With both drivers new to the track, Friday was spent finding a direction on set up. Qualifying saw Mark Webber on a charge and with the poor performance of the Toyotas, he qualified off the back of the grid in 18th. In a similar vein, Alex Yoong was near the pace and despite qualifying last, the gap between himself and Webber was closer than ever before, despite going off and bringing out the yellow flags during his second run.

The race proved unrewarding for the team with untypical two car retirement. Webber's power steering started to cause problems before his single scheduled pit stop, forcing him to retire. Yoong was having a competitive race until the oil pump failed leading to the Asiatech engine to let go in a big way on the main straight, leaving a trail of smoke and oil.