Move Pays Off for Schumacher

Michael Schumacher delayed a switch to rain tires, then once he had the lead, no one could catch him.

Schumacher pulled away in a Ferrari in the final 25 laps and won the U.S. Grand Prix by 18.2 seconds over pole-sitter Kimi Raikkonen, in a McLaren, Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Schumacher would clinch a record sixth Formula One championship by finishing in seventh place or better in the Japanese Grand Prix on Oct. 12. He shares the record with Juan Manuel Fangio.

“It was a crucial moment, because we had this sort of rain before, which just came and went. It was for sure too dry to go to wet tires,” Schumacher said. “This rain just looked like it would be another one of those, and it was just a gamble.”

The track dried quicker than many drivers expected, and all the drivers who went to the rain tires early in the race had to switch back to the slicks. That allowed Schumacher to come to the front of the field from his seventh-place start.

Schumacher leads Raikkonen, 92 points to 83. Juan Pablo Montoya, who finished sixth in a Williams at Indianapolis, has 82 points.

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Michael Waltrip ended Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s stranglehold on Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, sweeping high in a Chevrolet off the final turn to win the EA Sports 500 by 0.095 of a second and deny his teammate a fifth consecutive victory at the high-banked oval.

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Mario Dominguez of Mexico, driving a Ford-Cosworth/Lola, was the surprising winner of CART’s Grand Prix of the Americas at Miami, benefiting from a late crash that knocked leaders Adrian Fernandez and Bruno Junqueira from contention.

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Kenny Bernstein won his first Top Fuel race this season and the 36th of his career with a victory over Larry Dixon in the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Nationals at Joliet, Ill.

Bernstein, 59, passed Don Garlits for second place on the career victory list when he drove his Budweiser King dragster to a 4.503-second run at 328.46 mph to beat Dixon, who posted a 4.638 at 312.35 in the Miller Lite dragster.

Tony Pedregon ran unopposed in the Funny Car final when Phil Burkhart’s Pontiac Firebird broke down on the starting line after the burnout. Pedregon clocked a 4.769 at 316.52 in a Ford Mustang.

Jeg Coughlin won the Pro Stock against Greg Anderson, who fouled at the start in the final round.

Tennis

Justine Henin-Hardenne lost to Anastasia Myskina, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, in the Sparkassen Cup final at Leipzig, Germany, ending the Belgian’s 22-match winning streak.

Taylor Dent upset top-ranked Juan Carlos Ferrero, 6-3, 7-6 (5), to win the Thailand Open at Nonthaburi.... Mark Philippoussis beat top-seeded Jiri Novak, 6-2, 6-1, in the final of the Heineken Open at Shanghai.... Top-seeded Nicolas Massu recovered to beat Paul-Henri Mathieu, 1-6, 6-2, 7-6 (0), in the final of the Palermo Open at Sicily.

Miscellany

Paul Tergat of Kenya set a marathon world record of 2 hours 4 minutes 55 seconds in winning the Berlin Marathon. Khalid Khannouchi had set the previous mark of 2:05:38 on April 14, 2002.

Former Oakland Raider running back Marv Hubbard, 57, is facing drunken driving charges after he was involved in a fatal car accident early Saturday in Castro Valley, Calif.

Passings

Wendy Wyland VanDerWoude, who won the bronze medal in platform diving in the 1984 Olympics, has died. She was 38.

Vernon Wyland said his daughter went to work Saturday at Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology, fell ill and was rushed to a hospital. The cause of death was not immediately known.