Records tumble for runaway Ferrari

Back in 1988 a French driver called Jean-Louis Schlesser, making his Formula One debut at the age of 44, prevented McLaren-Honda from making a clean sweep of the season's 16 races. In the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, standing in for an unwell Nigel Mansell at Williams, Schlesser tripped up Ayrton Senna as the Brazilian came up to lap him and left him beached on a kerb. Ferrari's Gerhard Berger won the race.

There have been other seasons in which teams have been dominant, but the US Grand Prix here on Sunday swept Ferrari and Michael Schumacher even further ahead in the record books.

Thanks to the 1-2 result for the bemused winner Rubens Barrichello and the donor Michael Schumacher, Ferrari have now scored 205 points in the constructors' world championship after 16 of 17 races this season, expunging the previous record of 199 set by McLaren-Honda in that 1988 season.

Schumacher's second place created another record for consecutive points finishes of 21 races. Since he retired in last year's German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, he has finished off the podium once when he came fourth in the 2001 Italian Grand Prix. His points tally for the season also set a record of 134.

By any standard it has been a sensational season for the team that five years ago had just begun to struggle out of the doldrums. Now it seems that they cannot stop winning. Schumacher and Barrichello have won 14 of the 16 races held so far; only the Malaysian and Monaco grands prix fell to other teams.

As the rest of the world tried to figure out whether Schumacher misjudged things or genuinely meant to gift the win to Barrichello, Ferrari's sporting director Jean Todt savoured the dilemma. "To take our 14th win and eighth one-two finish of the season is a fantastic result," he said.

With BMW-Williams clinching second place in the constructors' championship thanks to Juan Pablo Montoya's fourth place, all that is left for their rivals to fight over in Japan in two weeks' time is third place for the drivers. Montoya has 47 points, his team-mate Ralf Schumacher 42 and Coulthard, fresh from third place here, 41.

"If we get anywhere near Ferrari at Suzuka I'm going to be real surprised," Montoya admitted even before the rout in Indianapolis.

Anyone not connected with Ferrari is hoping fervently that if Montoya is not wrong, then the boffins at BMW-Williams and McLaren-Mercedes will at least come up with something worthwhile over the winter to prevent a similar walkover next year.