The penultimate round of the F1 World Championship was a race that see-sawed in favour of all three of the Championship contenders numerous times.

The race definitely began in Kimi Raikkonen’s favour as he stormed away from the rest of the field having started from pole position. Michael Schumacher also looked good moving up from seventh place to fourth by the end of the first lap, while Juan Pablo Montoya did not have a great start and dropped from fourth to seventh.

However, the Colombian’s bad luck had only just begun. He tagged Rubens Barrichello on the fourth lap of the race, and pushed the Ferrari driver off the track. Barrichello’s race was over, while Montoya was later to pay the penalty for his courageous by foolhardy move, and was later awarded a drive-through penalty.

It was a disappointing moment for the Colombian as he had worked his way up the field when the rain began to fall at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway a lap after his shunt with Barrichello. Michael, meanwhile, suffered because of the rain and lost places, falling down to seventh. But as the rain let up he improved his position, and then breathed a sigh of relief when the downpour returned with a vengeance.

The rain, though, was not greeted with smiles by the Michelin runners, who saw their advantage over the Bridgestone runners dissipate. Both Olivier Panis, and Jacques Villeneuve rued the ever- changing weather conditions as they pitted for wets when the rain began, only to pit again when it let up, and pit again when it came down again.

The rain also played havoc for Ralf Schumacher, also saw his race dissipate, completely. The Williams driver went off the track, and hit the barriers damaging his rear wing. Moments later, Mark Webber joined him on the sidelines after spinning off the track. Panis was the next to retire, going off at turn nine.

While Michelins teams were hurting, the Bridgestone runners were smiling. At the end of lap 30 and what seemed to be a continuous run of pitstops, BAR’s Jenson Button found himself leading the race ahead of Sauber’s Heinz-Harald Frentzen. Kimi Raikkonen was third ahead of Michael. But that didn’t stay that way for long as Raikkonen was taken by Michael, who then went on to take second place from Frentzen.

The German then closed up on Button taking 1.5 seconds out of his lead per lap, and on lap 38 Michael took the lead of the United States Grand Prix, and began to pull away. His Championship rivals, Raikkonen and Montoya, were down in fourth and tenth places respectively despite the rain having let up and the Indy track drying out.

Button’s dream of clinching his first-ever podium finish came to a halt on lap 41 when his Honda engine blew at the end of the pit straight. His demise, though, was a blessing for Raikkonen who had dropped down to fifth place after his pitstop. He moved up to fourth thanks to Button, but still needed to pass both Saubers of Frentzen and Nick Heidfeld to prevent Michael from winning the World title. Montoya progressed to seventh.

David Coulthard joined the list of retirements with 24 laps still to go, and parked his ailing McLaren in the garage. Three laps after Coulthard’s retirement Raikkonen’s race began to look better as Heidfeld pitted and Raikkonen moved up to third place. Just Frentzen stood in the way of Raikkonen keeping the Championship alive, and like his Sauber team-mate he too was soon out of the picture as Raikkonen took him for second place.

The Finn, though, was unable to close the gap to Michael in the remaining 20 laps, while with ten laps remaining the field dropped to just 12 cars as Ralph Firman parked his EJ13 on the side of the road. Jordan still had one driver left in the race, though, Giancarlo Fisichella, who was holding onto sixth place. But he was soon being pressured by Montoya, who cut Fisi’s lead to two seconds by lap 66, and passed him a lap later, Meanwhile Villeneuve retired from the race with a blown Honda engine another lap later.

As the laps wore down Montoya watched his Championship dream die, while Raikkonen saw his strength, but it was Michael who had the biggest smile as he crossed the line to clinch the United States Grand Prix victory. Raikkonen finished second, 19 seconds behind, Frentzen third.

Top Eight: M Schumacher, Raikkonen, Frentzen, Trulli, Heidfeld, Montoya, Fisichella and Wilson.