Michael Schumacher scored his eighth win in nine races this season at last Sunday's United States Grand Prix. This time, however, it was a very close race, in which all the factors seemed to conspire to make the Ferrari driver victorious. Atlas F1's Richard Barnes reviews Schumacher's performance at Indianapolis

It's said that a top racing driver knows every inch of the circuits on which he plies his trade. As the top driver of his generation, this truism applies more so to Michael Schumacher than any other current driver. The German could doubtless reel off the ideal line, gear and revs for any corner of any circuit on the calendar, depending on car set-up, tyre compound and wear, fuel load and weather conditions. The single gap in Schumacher's encyclopedic knowledge of GP circuits is an apparent confusion about where the lap of Indianapolis starts and where it ends.

In 2002, it cost Schumacher victory in the US GP, as he inexplicably eased up on the final straight and allowed teammate Rubens Barrichello to snatch the win by the proverbial hair's breadth. On Sunday, the German again seemed to misjudge the placing of the timing beam, but this time fortune favoured him.

Schumacher cannot be faulted for launching his move the moment the Safety Car pulled off the circuit and racing resumed. That was fine judgment, and represented Schumacher's best chance of gaining the lead from surprise pole-sitter Barrichello. What stunned observers was just how fine Schumacher cut it, and how close he came to a race-ruining penalty.

The official verdict was that slightly more than a hundredth of a second separated the two Ferraris as they crossed the line, with Schumacher that fraction on the side of legal. There is no driver, no matter how skilled or experienced, who can judge an overtaking move to that degree of decimal point precision. Michael Schumacher made an error of judgment and, with little more than blind faith and luck, got away with it.

It was another of those races in which everything goes the German's way, while the opposition self-destructs around him. And in each case, it was the smallest of margins that settled matters - from the 0.013 second gap during Schumacher's overtaking move to Juan Pablo Montoya's disqualification for staying on the grid just a couple of seconds beyond the 15 second cut-off.

Schumacher's overtaking move may have raised eyebrows, but the German's pitstop during the next Safety Car period upped the ante even further. Schumacher has achieved the miraculous several times during his career. But even he would struggle to remember when he last managed to lead a bunched field by a couple of seconds, pit for fresh tyres and fuel, and regain the track without losing the lead.

BAR's Takuma Sato explained this apparent impossibility during the post-race press conference, stating that the leading pack had come to a virtual standstill as they picked their way through the debris from Ralf Schumacher's accident at Turn 13. For Ferrari (and most other teams), pitting both cars while the field was slowed during the Safety Car period was tactical common sense. However, not even Ferrari technical director and master tactician Ross Brawn could have foreseen the unexpected benefit, that Schumacher would pit without losing a single position.

Even with that advantage, and Barrichello being held up behind Schumacher during the stops, the German was made to work hard for his win. And it took yet another stroke of fortune for Schumacher to deny the Brazilian. During the post-race press conference, Barrichello complained about hitting a piece of debris that slowed him just before his second pitstop, the very time he needed to be fastest.

The Brazilian's complaint seems justified. For three successive laps prior to the race-deciding stop, Barrichello had turned in times around 1'10.5", approximately one and a half seconds per lap faster than Schumacher, who had already made his final stop and was struggling with a heavier fuel load at the time. The lap before he pitted, when he would have expected to be even quicker if anything, Barrichello suddenly lost eight tenths of a second, dropping back to a 1'11.3".

As he left the pitlane following his final stop, Barrichello was close enough to try a lunge at Schumacher in the next series of corners. With another eight tenths to his advantage, it may have been enough for Ferrari's number two. As it was, Schumacher had just enough of an edge to shut the door very firmly on Barrichello and his hopes of an upset victory. It was that sort of afternoon for the German. Every time there was a fraction of a second (or a whole lot more) to be gained or lost, his luck held and he came out on top.

For the rest of the field, Indianapolis 2004 provided little reason to celebrate. One exception was BAR's Takuma Sato, who reversed the season trend and earned an overdue and well-deserved first podium. As fine an achievement as this was, BAR cannot be satisfied with their tactical approach to the race. They had the second best car in the field, and Sato spent a large part of the race battling for third with Williams' Juan Pablo Montoya and Renault's Jarno Trulli - both of whom had effectively started from the back of the grid.

In this instance, the team's strategy was to blame. The BARs inexplicably passed up the opportunity to pit when Ferrari did, immediately following the Ralf Schumacher accident. BAR felt that it was the correct decision not to pit, as they expected to leapfrog the Ferraris and to be released into clean air when racing resumed. When Michael Schumacher emerged from his pitstop still in front of the BARs, that plan had been scuppered and BAR had essentially handed Ferrari a free pitstop advantage. In a two-stopping race, that's more of a luxury than any rival team can afford.

From that moment on, BAR were racing for second. Even so, the team still had another eight Safety Car laps in which to change strategy, pit, mitigate the lost opportunity and consolidate their position as 'best of the rest'. Instead, they stayed out on track, giving the rest of their rivals a free pitstop as well and eventually pitting a mere half-dozen laps after racing resumed. It was a decision as baffling as the cavalier timing of Schumacher's overtaking move on Barrichello.

Ultimately, neither decision cost the respective drivers. Schumacher romped home to his third Indianapolis victory in five starts, and Sato was able to pass Renault's Jarno Trulli later in the race to earn his first podium. However, there will be times when such miscalculations proved costly. For Michael Schumacher, that's not a major concern. Even with the occasional off day or questionable decision, he's still clearly the most relentlessly consistent driver in the field.

For BAR, it raises deeper questions. If they aspire to toppling Ferrari and Schumacher, they will need a package - performance, driver consistency, reliability, tactical acuity - that rivals Ferrari's. The pieces of the puzzle are slowly coming together, although there are still too many mechanical breakdowns, not enough consistency and an inability to match the Brawn/Schumacher brains trust in terms of strategy.

It will not be feasible for BAR to rise to Ferrari's level during the remainder of the year. However, with continued progress during the second half of the season, they can certainly lay the groundwork for a serious challenge in 2005.

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