Part 2

RETRO: What was it like to race in F1's most controversial grand prix?

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emailBy Mark Glendenning | 7 hours ago

The performance gap between the Michelins and Bridgestones had been evident all year, and qualifying in Indianapolis had merely served to reinforce that. Schumacher qualified best of the Bridgestone runners in fifth, albeit more than 0.7s off Jarno Trulli’s pole-sitting Toyota. Barrichello was two spots back; the pair sandwiching world-champion-in-the-making Fernando Alonso’s Renault. The rest of the Bridgestones were stuck in the cheap seats. Monteiro lined up in P17 ahead of Christijan Albers’ Minardi, leaving Narain Karthikeyan’s Jordan and Patrick Friesacher’s Minardi to fill the back row.

“My direct competitors were there, because all year long, we’d been fighting with the Minardis basically, and once in a while one of the other teams,” says Monteiro. “So this was the one race where you needed to finish in front of those cars.”

There were four empty rows between Monteiro and Barrichello, and when the lights went out, he made the most of the empty road ahead to position his car where he needed to in order to ward off any challenge at Turn 1. Behind him, Karthikeyan slightly fluffed his start, and after a brief joust with Albers, fell in behind the Dutchman. By the time he found a way around him later in the race, Monteiro was long gone.

“I wanted to get a good start; I wanted to pull away from [the cars around me]; I didn’t want to be under pressure,” he says. “We’d had our share of technical issues, so there was no guarantee that we’d finish the race. We had a lot of mechanical DNFs [as a team]. And even though I had a very good record of finishing the races, you never know until it happens.

“So for three-quarters of the race, I pushed like hell – I thought, whatever happens, I just need to get away from those guys. So I was pushing. I was able to pull away, and halfway through the race my engineer says, ‘You have 20s or whatever – it was a huge gap – so take it easy now; maybe slow it down by a second a lap or something.’ And I said, ‘No, no – I don’t want to lose focus.’ So I kept pushing. And then, maybe a quarter of the race to go, we started to have gearbox temperature problems. So they came back on and told me, ‘OK, now you really have to slow down, because we have high temperatures on the gearbox. So cool it down.’

“Of course I had to, obviously. But then your mind starts thinking about things. First of all, that was the first moment when I realized, ‘****, I’m actually P3 in the race.’ Second of all, I had a huge gap – like, 30s – but there were still 15, 20 laps to go, so lots of things could still happen. And I could hear so many noises! Your mind starts playing games, so suddenly the gearbox felt weird, the brakes felt weird, the engine felt weird… everything was weird.
There weren’t a lot of happy faces in the Speedway after the race, but some of the rare exceptions of a happy face could be found anywhere the Jordan crew was congregating. Image by Motorsport Images

“I tried to focus again, and again, and again. And then 10 laps to go there was a nightmare, because we had an alarm – a temperature alarm or something like that – and I was, ‘Oh, I cannot believe it’… I was already worried that I was going to get criticized for pushing too much because I didn’t need that much of a gap, and now this.

“It was one of the most mentally challenging races I’ve done. Apart from the pitstop I was mostly alone, but I was pushing like hell. I was doing qualifying laps every lap. My biggest concern was that I didn’t want to be under pressure at the end; I wanted to get away from the other guys and then just manage the end of the race. I pushed like crazy. And with all the small problems that started to happen… it was quite stressful.”

That stress was lifted at the end of lap 72, when Schumacher and Barrichello put the race out of its misery by taking the checkered flag in what was the nearest thing Ferrari will ever have to an uncontested 1-2. Monteiro kept his head and his car together to secure an invaluable third for his team.

“When I got back… everyone was celebrating like crazy, because there were bonuses for everybody,” he says. “First of all there was the joy of getting points, but then there was the financial aspect – the team was going to get huge benefits at the end of the season. Plus the prize money, of which everybody got a cut. So everyone was excited about that. But also, the team hadn’t had a podium for two or three years, so it was very rewarding for all of the hard work that all of those guys were doing.”

Coincidentally, Jordan’s previous podium had also been earned under unusual circumstances – Giancarlo Fisichella was classified second behind Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen at a rain-shortened visit to Brazil in 2003, but confusion over the timing of the red flag prompted Jordan to appeal, and Fisichella was subsequently awarded the win in a courtroom.

***

The six cars finished Noah’s Ark-style – in pairs, a lap apart. Karthikeyan crossed the line in fourth, the two Jordans a lap down on the Ferraris, and the Minardis of Albers and Friesacher came in a further lap behind.

The final classification was incongruous, but it was also poignant. Monteiro’s result was the 19th and last podium that the Jordan team would ever score, while the simple achievement of getting both of its cars to complete the race distance earned Minardi its final-ever points. Simultaneously heroic and underwhelming, it was a result entirely in keeping with Minardi’s DNA. Neither team survived the winter, and when 2006 rolled around, Midland F1 and Toro Rosso had taken their place. [Jordan was already under Midland ownership in 2005, but had continued racing under its old name.]

It was also the sole win for Ferrari’s F2005. Already at a disadvantage by being on Bridgestones, it was also saddled with aerodynamic problems and a clunky transmission: a rare Maranello misstep after five consecutive championships. Schumacher managed to drag it onto the podium just two more times over the remaining 10 races of the season.

But historical context was something for Monteiro to think about later. First, he had a third-place trophy to collect.