U.S. Grand Prix ending raises eyebrows

INDIANAPOLIS -- Controversy struck again on race day in Indianapolis as Ferrari dominated the United States Grand Prix, with their drivers, Brazilian Rubens Barrichello and German Michael Schumacher, finishing 1-2, respectively.\nUnlike this year's Indianapolis 500, when controversy swirled over who won the race, this time questions were raised regarding the tactics used between the Ferrari drivers that allowed Barrichello to come out on top.\nFerrari's prancing horse controlled the Grand Prix from beginning to end as Barrichello and Schumacher led every lap of the race. Schumacher led after all but five of the 73 laps, including by 2.743 seconds with just two laps remaining. It was then that Schumacher began to slow down to allow Barrichello to close the gap.\nAs the Ferraris came around the final turn, Barrichello pulled up along side Schumacher and in the words of Schumacher, tried to finish side-by-side. As they crossed the start/finish line, Barrichello slid past his teammate and won the race by a mere 11-thousandths of a second.\nBarrichello was gracious to both Schumacher and his team for the victory.\n"It wasn't planned (to finish that way)," Barrichello said. "We never said at the beginning of the race, I guess we had a lot of fun in the race trying to be as fast as the other. I just thank Michael (Schumacher) very much and thank the whole team for the support."\nSchumacher, who has already clinched his fifth career Formula One World Drivers Championship this year, received a win in much the same fashion from Barrichello earlier in the season at Austria. In that circumstance, Schumacher was ahead in the championship battle and was trying to secure the title; Barrichello followed Ferrari team orders to let Schumacher get the win.\nFerrari's finish clinched second place in the Drivers Championship for Barrichello as he recorded his fourth victory of the season and 14 in 16 races for Ferrari. Despite no team orders being present this weekend, Schumacher seemed to be paying back his teammate.\n"It was just that I felt (Barrichello) deserves to win this race and the team asked me sort of not to do anything. And then we went side by side and in the end he was the winner. We both didn't know actually who was the winner. He was asking me down the straight, you won, I won? And I didn't know either. So we had to wait until we saw some sort of screen to see who won."\nBarrichello shared the same sentiments.\n"To win it was very, very good," he said. "I got to the last corner, I didn't know what to do. Michael was just very kind to, you know, let us finish equally. I guess I pointed a little bit in front, but, you know, what can we say? We're just having a lot of fun together, working together and having the car in front of everyone."\nBehind the Ferrari domination, McLaren-Mercedes driver, David Coulthard came home in third, with BMW-Williams' Juan Pablo Montoya securing fourth.\nCoulthard was pleased with his podium finish.\n"We weren't going to beat Ferrari," Coulthard said. "It was a question of just beating Williams. We can take a little boost from this weekend because we've taken a step forward."\nFighting for the final points paying positions in the race were Jarno Trulli of Renault and Jacques Villeneuve of British American Racing. Trulli finished just 1.6 seconds ahead of Villeneuve. Trulli's finish was his fourth in the points this season and was his second consecutive after he finished fourth at Italy two weeks ago.\n"We had a very good strategy, very smart, one pit stop, which paid off at the end of the race," Trulli said. "I was lapping very well. I'm extremely happy because in two races in a row, I'm scoring points"