Michael Schumacher is the 2003 World Champion! Barrichello wins with Raikkonen second and David Coulthard third. Today's race is one of the most amazing and memorable one ever for this season with a couple of incidents throughout the race. Firstly, Michael Schumacher who was trying to overtake the BAR driver of Takuma Sato, ended up crippling his front nose and had to stop for a new nose replacement.
Michael's problems didn't end there - when he was trying to overtake the Toyota driver of Cristiano Da Matta, he locked his rear tires with his brother Ralf following closely behind nearly taking both out in the process. Ralf had to return to the pits for a new nose and ended up finishing the race at 12th Position. In the end, Michael drove a solid race considering the circumstances and the problems that he had faced along with the kind of pressure that he was facing and not only that, he's probably not used to being so far at the back of the track - starting off at 14th on the grid.
At one point, Montoya was leading the race comfortably but he had to leave the race with a hydraulic failure, one thing that happens quite often with Montoya's racecar this season. The moment Montoya was out, there was almost no chance for the Williams team to win the Constructors Championship with Barrichello leading the race at that time and Ralf was further down the field, out of the points paying position.
I believe the BAR drivers of Jensen Button and Takuma Sato drove a solid race today and such a solid race has rewarded the BAR team with a 5th place in the Constructors Championship, leapfrogging Jaguar and the Sauber team.
During the press conference, Michael appears to be very tired and it was really a mixed feeling for him as he won the Driver's Championship in 8th Position - a strange position for him to be winning his championship, but nevertheless, he had to work hard and fight for it this season and i sincerely believe he deserved it. After all the ups and downs that he had to face this season, receiving bad comments from the press stating that he will not win his 6th title, he surely proved them wrong.
It'll be a long break before the next season starts again at March 2004 in Melbourne Australia, but i'm sure there's going to be a lot of news from the Scuderia team along the way :)
