World Cup running on Schumi's mind too

Indianapolis: If Michael Schumacher is going to have any chance to catch Fernando Alonso in the race for the Formula One championship, he probably needs to start making some inroads into the points lead in Sunday's United States Grand Prix.

But Schumacher, who has four wins and two runners-up finishes in six races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, sure didn't seem worried on Friday.

In fact, it appeared the seven-time F1 champ from Germany was far more concerned with his home country's World Cup match against Argentina than what was happening on Indy's 2.6-mile (4-kilometer), 13-turn road course.

The Ferrari star, trailing Renault's Alonso by 34 points halfway through the 18-race season, spent little time on the track during Friday's two 60-minute practices, spinning off course after only three laps in the morning session and posting the sixth fastest lap in the afternoon.

"I'm happy with what we have seen on the track today," Schumacher said. "The situation looks pretty good, which means we can tackle the rest of the weekend with confidence. Let's say I had more problems trying to watch the quarterfinals on television than I did in the cockpit.

"When I went off the track this morning, maybe I was still thinking a bit too much about the grass on the football pitch."

Schumacher wore a self-satisfied smile late in the afternoon after both Germany and Italy the favourite team of most of the Ferrari mechanics won their World Cup matches, advancing to the semifinals.

"Now we can all concentrate on our main objective, which is to win the race on Sunday," he said.

Though Alonso has won six of nine races this season, including the last four, and finished second in the other three, he still has some trepidation coming to Indy.

The 24-year-old Spaniard says he understands Indy's historic place in auto racing and respects the Brickyard, but he just hasn't been able to get a handle on the USGP course.

"Indianapolis, for sure, has been the most difficult race for us," said Alonso, who has finished no better than 15th in three previous races here.

His first Indy, in 2001, was in a Minardi entry that wasn't competitive. But his last two tries, 2003 and 2004, have been with Renault, one of the sport's top teams.

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"The car has never been competitive here and I don't know why," the reigning Formula One champion said. "We've been quite unlucky. Hopefully, it will be this time, but I have some doubts, for sure."

Still, Alonso was not concerned enough to take part in the opening practice session Friday and he waited through nearly half of the afternoon session before finally driving his blue and yellow No. 1 Renault onto the track.

It took Alonso only three laps to move up among the day's leaders. He wound up the session, dominated by team test drivers allowed to run a third team entry only on Fridays of race weekends - ninth overall.

"This was a normal Friday for me," Alonso said. "Friday is all about understanding the tire behavior and what direction you need to go in with setup, which we have done. The circuit grip will improve as we run more, so the track should come to us a little bit and I'm confident for the rest of the weekend."

Schumacher probably doesn't need much time to prepare for Indy, where he has had so much success. But last year's victory was tainted by the fact that only six drivers ran the race after 14 others pulled out just moments before the green flag because of a dispute over tire safety.

Alonso, then in the midst of his strong and somewhat unexpected run for the championship, hated to miss the 2005 race and he says he also felt sorry for the spectators who paid to watch the debacle.

"We had a (drivers') meeting before the race, where we tried to agree to racing, to put on for everybody a good show," he said. "We didn't want to race for points, we knew we had a problem with tires but we wanted just to race for the people out there.

"One team and some drivers didn't want to do that. They wanted to race alone and they did it. This is difficult to forget all the people that were upset out there."

Besides hoping for a good show on Sunday to help get F1 back in the good graces of its American fans - and maybe win some new ones - Alonso would love to turn around his Indy performance.

But his strategy is simple.

"We need to go for wins," Alonso said. "I think the best defense is to keep attacking and keep increasing the gap with second place. We cannot wait and see the others win."