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| At last weekend's Canadian GP Rubens Barrichello managed to break team-mate Michael Schumachers run as the fastest man on the track and at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday he did it again.
In a day of thrills and spills, Michael Schumacher kept his cool to clinch his eighth victory of the 2004 season, but Rubens Barrichello was hot on Schumis heels. Building from the fastest lap he set-up in Montreal, Barrichello once again proved to be the quickest man on the race-track, recording a best time of 1:10.399 seconds, 0.013 seconds faster than the World Champ. There were a few defining moments in Indianapolis on Sunday, but one great performance that springs to mind is that of BARs Takuma Sato. He was a man on a mission and that was clear in his lap times, too. He didnt only get his first podium finish, he also set the third fastest lap time in 1:10.727 seconds. This was 0.298 seconds faster than his British team-mate Jenson Button who didnt finish the race. Olivier Panis had a good race for Toyota. He finished in fifth position and set the fourth fastest lap time of the day. He was a massive 1.2 seconds faster than his team-mate Cristiano da Matta. |
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| Jenson Button has supported BAR's decision not to refuel either of their two cars when the safety car was deployed for Ralf Schumacher's crash.
Although both Ferraris took advantage to take what was essentially a free pit-stop, BAR declined the invation and stayed on track. Just three laps after the safety car returned to the pits, both Jenson and team-mate Takuma Sato were forced to refuel. Having been pressurising Michael Schumacher in the early stages, the pair were then demoted to outside the top ten with Schumacher out of sight further up the road. Having claimed that the team did not expect the safety car to be on track for so long - an odd expectation considering the severity of Ralf's crash - Button publiclly supported the team's decision not to bring forward their first pit-stop. "We decided to stay out, instead of pitting under the safety car, and I support the team's decision to do that - it was the right thing to do," he insisted. Geoff Willis, who admitted immediately after the race that "In retrospect, we should have taken one car in with the safety car," remained defiant amid strong criticism of the BAR strategy and claimed that Ferrari's decision to pit Schumi and Rubens could have back-fired and handed BAR a winning position. "We had very poor starts, particularly Jenson, but after that our car was extremely quick but unfortunately we did not get the opportunity to race the Ferraris," he said. |