2002 United States Grand Prix
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 16 of 17 in the 2002 Formula One season | |||
 |
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| Date | 29 September 2002 | ||
| Official name | XXXI SAP United States Grand Prix | ||
| Location |
Indianapolis Motor Speedway Indianapolis, Indiana |
||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 4.195 km (2.606 mi) | ||
| Distance | 73 laps, 306.235 km (190.238 mi) | ||
| Weather | Sunny with temperatures reaching up to 80.1 °F (26.7 °C); wind speeds approaching a maximum of 10.1 miles per hour (16.3 km/h) Track 93 °F (34 °C) | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | Ferrari | ||
| Time | 1:10.790 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |
 Rubens Barrichello
|
Ferrari | |
| Time | 1:12.738 on lap 27 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First |
|
Ferrari | |
| Second |
|
Ferrari | |
| Third | McLaren-Mercedes | ||
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The 2002 United States Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 29 September 2002 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Rubens Barrichello took the win by 0.011 seconds from teammate Michael Schumacher, with the two Ferrari drivers switching positions in the final few metres of the race after Schumacher attempted to stage a dead heat with his teammate to the finish. It was the smallest margin of victory in an American Grand Prix, and the closest margin in a Formula One race since the introduction of timing to the nearest thousandth of a second.
It was Ferrari's eighth one-two finish of the season. Barrichello said "To win, it was very, very, very good... I got to the last corner, I didn't know what to do and nothing has been said. 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?" Schumacher said "The end of the race was not planned... We tried to cross the line together but failed by a tiny bit and in fact we did not know who had won until we got out of the cars. I just felt Rubens deserved to win this race."
David Coulthard took third for McLaren, just two seconds ahead of the Williams of Juan Pablo Montoya, while Jarno Trulli and Jacques Villeneuve battled throughout the race and finished fifth and sixth.
With both season titles already in Ferrari's grasp, promoters for the race urged fans to come "see history in the making" and "a sports legend...one of the greatest racing drivers...of all time," namely five-time World Champion Michael Schumacher. Indeed, Schumacher topped the charts in every pre-race session and on Saturday set a new qualifying record of 1:10.790.
Despite heavy rain early Friday morning, the track was dry for the first practice and remained that way all weekend. On his first lap, Barrichello became the first Formula 1 driver in three years of running at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to hit the concrete wall in the oval section of the track. As he was about to finish his first lap, his left rear tire lost pressure and the car was flung into the outer wall at the top of the main straight, ripping off the left rear corner and front wing. Barrichello's car missed the energy-absorbing Steel And Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) barrier that had been installed in front of the concrete wall in all of the oval turns the previous May. The Ferrari went across the grass at the bottom of Turn 13, up the banking, and hit the bare concrete wall at the beginning of the straight.
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