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<td valign="top" align="left"><span class="date">The Times[/quote]</td>
<td valign="top" align="right"><span class="date">July 01, 2006[/quote]</td>
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<h4>It is win or bust for Schumacher</h4>
<span class="byline">From James Ducker, in Indianapolis[/quote]

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<div class="textcopy">IT MAY be crunch time as far as the future of the US Grand Prix is concerned, but the same also applies to the Formula One championship race.



The build-up to tomorrow’s race has been overshadowed by the memory of last year’s fiasco and the realisation that this could be Formula One’s last in the US, but while the world’s most famous motor racing driver has been doing his bit to improve the sport’s tarnished image here, Michael Schumacher’s principal aim is not to win over a circumspect American public but simply to keep the title race alive. </div>
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Schumacher trails Fernando Alonso by 25 points at the halfway stage of the season and should he fail to chalk up a record fifth victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), the German will effectively kiss goodbye to his already slim hopes of winning an eighth drivers’ championship.


Indeed, only a Devon Loch-style collapse will prevent Alonso from retaining the title he won so splendidly last season if he records his first win in the US. There are no guarantees that will happen, even if the Spaniard’s superior Renault is looking increasingly unbeatable. History is against him.


It is 94 years since a driver last won a motor racing event at the IMS on Michelin tyres and while Alonso, who has not finished outside the top two all year, will have every confidence that he can bring that barren run to an end, this is not a track that has been kind to him in the past.


Aside from last year, when he was one of 14 drivers who pulled into the pitlane after the parade lap and parked up in a protest over tyre safety, Alonso has failed to finish in all three of his races here. Schumacher, by contrast, has won four times and finished second twice in his six visits to the IMS, although he boasted a similarly impressive record at the Canadian Grand Prix and that counted for nothing in Montreal last weekend as Alonso romped to a sixth victory of the season.


Not that Schumacher is about to give up hope, although he hardly inspired confidence in the first practice session yesterday when he steered too wide on turn four and spun off on to the gravel. His Ferrari then had to be lifted off the track. “Our strategy is easy,” he said. “It’s to attack. We cannot and will not give up hope. As long as the championship is open, we will keep on fighting.”


Schumacher, along with all the others, was outpaced yesterday by Anthony Davidson, the 27-year-old Briton. The Honda test driver, who will not race tomorrow, clocked the fastest time in both practice sessions.


But Schumacher thinks that, at 37, he is still getting better as a driver. “You never stop learning,” he said. “There is a point where you stop gaining speed, natural speed, but that starts very early.


“After that, it’s about the experience you take on. I’ll never stop learning because Formula One develops all the time, and you just have to keep track of the development and be on top of it, and that makes you develop at the same time.”


All of which would scare most drivers, but not Alonso. The 24-year-old clearly relishes the challenge of Schumacher and is expecting his closest race yet this season.


“Indianapolis will be the most difficult race for us,” Alonso said. “The car was never competitive here and we don’t know why.


“Everyone wants to beat Michael on the track because it is the same as beating Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. The first year that Michael is not racing, then maybe the championship won’t have the same value.”


In time, people may come to say the same thing about Alonso.




Edited by - mpollard on 06/30/2006 10:49:59 PM