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Ferrari, a world triumph You never know, given the seesaw of emotions and results, but it really seems that the success achieved by Ferrari at Indianapolis may be really that taking to the final victory. This is a world championship Ferrari already seemed to have won after the three first consecutive victories, and which completely changed after McLaren impetuous comeback. A series of overtaking and emotions until Ferrari's double victories in the last Grand Prix races taking place in Monza and Indianapolis, which had not hosted a Formula 1 competition for a long time. Schumacher won this race, like the Monza race, but he mainly "broke off", obviously speaking in terms of mechanics, his great rival, Mika Hakkinen, who now will certainly have a lot of difficulty in recovering points with only two GPs to be run. The current world champion has mainly to deal with a major handicap, i.e. the reliability of his car now that everything is going to be decided in the very last races. Reliability has always been the strong point of the German car in the most delicate moments of the season. And even after Schumacher's initial rush, Hakkinen and Coulthard had always seemed unstoppable in their run for the top rankings. Mika's double victory in Hungary and Belgium over Ferrari appeared to be the definitive turning point of the season, with Schumi losing the leadership and leaving 6 points to the Finnish pilot. For 3 consecutive competitions in the climax of the season Michael seemed to be unable to solve the problem of start and those mechanical failures that prevented him from gaining points. On the other side, Hakkinen's striking continuity resulted in the final overtaking of Ferrari, and in Indianapolis Hakkinen had thus a two-points lead over Schumacher.  But now the boot is on the other foot and after 12 Grand Prix races during which Hakkinen continued to win, he stopped right in the most delicate moment, thus allowing Schumi to overtake him. Then the Grand Prix will close in the East, in Japan and Malaysia, between 8 and 22 October. Now it is the turn of Ferrari to be psychologically confident, while its rivals now certainly feel strong pressure for a positive result at all costs. Indeed, Hakkinen knows that if he only wants to draw he must absolutely win both at Suzuka and Sepang. And this because, if the two pilots ended the Grand Prix with the same points, then Schumacher would win the championship thanks to the higher number of total victories (seven to six). Thus Schumi is rather confident, even if he got two second places. But this is not the strategy preferred by the German pilot, who has already announced he wants to attack in order to settle the question on the first occasion. On the other hand, we have already seen during the season what meant for Ferrari trying to keep the lead. After the Canada GP, Ferrari had even a 24-point lead over McLaren. Yet, the German car slowly but gradually filled this gap until the day of the engine failure in the USA. It is therefore advisable to avoid making any plans. But it is however necessary to underline that in the final rush the German pilot can have an important advantage over Hakkinen; if to date Mika's lead has also been "favoured" by the obstructionist driving of his team mate Coulthard, now that roles are exchanged we should expect that Barrichello, too, helps Schumacher. The law of the jungle works particularly well in the Formula 1 world.  Paolo Ghisoni

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