A new era for the US Grand Prix

40

It was on September 24 2000 that Michael Schumacher claimed victory in the first Formula One United States Grand Prix to be held at Indianapolis.

When Formula One first began in 1950, the famed Indianapolis 500 was officially part of the world championship - although in those days the long-haul flight and the amount of time needed to take part in practice and qualifying meant that non-US teams and drivers skipped the event to concentrate on the European races instead.

The first official United States Grand Prix to be held specifically as part of the FIA championship was in 1959, when Bruce McLaren clinched victory at Florida's Sebring Raceway. Stirling Moss won the following year at Riverside Raceway in California, and after that the event settled into a long residency at Watkins Glen in New York State.

Williams F1's Alan Jones was the last Formula One winner at Watkins Glen, and it was nearly a decade until the next United States Grand Prix was held in Phoenix. Alain Prost claimed victory for McLaren in 1989 before two back-to-back wins for Aryton Senna. After that there was another lull before a deal was struck to bring the Grand Prix to a new road course circuit specially constructed within Indianapolis Motor Speedway which incorporated about a mile of the iconic 2.5-mile oval in its design albeit in an unusual clockwise direction.

Ferrari's Michael Schumacher started from pole ahead of the McLarens of David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen. Despite a spin four laps from the end in wet conditions, he won the 73-lap event in a time of 1:36:30.883s which was more than 12 seconds ahead of his team mate Rubens Barrichello who had started from third place on the grid. Jordan's Heinz-Harald Frentzen took the remaining podium place ahead of BAR's Jacques Villeneuve, with Coulthard slipping to fifth after a ten-second penalty for jumping the start and Hakkinen retiring with engine problems on lap 26.

The result meant that Schumacher regained the lead in the drivers' championship, by eight points from Hakkinen, the second time he had led in the 2000 season. That put Coulthard 25 points behind Schumacher and out of the running for the title with just two races in Japan and Malaysia remaining. Schumacher then secured two more back-to-back wins in those events to hold off Hakkinen and claim the 2000 title, his third championship and the first of five that he won with Ferrari.

F1i's Eric Silbermann asks what Nico Rosberg has to do to get the credit he deserves

From the cockpit: Felipe Nasr on lights and shadows in Singapore

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS: Nicolas Carpentiers checks out the latest innovations seen in Singapore

2016 Singapore Grand Prix - Driver ratings

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.