Trulli's Indianapolis weekend

Throughout the entire weekend, the Renault F1 Team showed great pace at Indianapolis. In spite of a less than flattering grid position, Jarno Trulli managed to score five extra points. Jarno Trulli. Photo by Greg Gage. The team knew ...

Throughout the entire weekend, the Renault F1 Team showed great pace at Indianapolis. In spite of a less than flattering grid position, Jarno Trulli managed to score five extra points.

Jarno Trulli.

Photo by Greg Gage.

The team knew they could achieve a good result in te USA, but to do so, they woud have to put together a faultless weekend. "Straight away on Friday, we realised we were very competitive," explained Jarno. "The two hours of running in the dry were a real benefit: our rivals lost half the first practice session after it rained, and were unable to complete all their set-up work. So I took advantage, and set the fastest time in the first qualifying session."

The R23B, however, was still not handling perfectly, and the Saturday practice sessions were to give the engineers a further chance to fine-tune their calculations.

Storms during the night, though, rendered the opening session useless. It was only during the second that everybody could get an idea of how competitive their rivals were. Jarno was right in among the mix: he trailed Rubens Barrichello by just twelve thousandths of a second. "From then on, we began to think that a really good result would be possible," commented the Italian.

"We tweaked two or three details for the warm-up in order to get the balance just right, and went out to do our run. Small mistakes, though, can bring a heavy price: I had an off just a few minutes before second qualifying, and the car was quite seriously damaged. My mechanics repaired it in time, but I did not manage to put the qualifying lap together. I ended up tenth on the grid."

During the race, the conditions were changing all the time, and that made life difficult for the drivers and the engineers on the pit wall. "My car got quicker and quicker as the race went on, and we didn't get caught out by the rain," smiled Jarno. "I attacked from the start to finish, being careful in the wet and pushing to the limit when the track had dried. I managed to grab fourth place by passing Nick Heidfeld, which was an excellent result in the circumstances. I am pleased with the result, even though we should have left Indy with a bigger prize..."