The other ex-championship contenders were just happy to finish the race. The Flying Finn Jr. brought his McLaren home in 3rd, but was running almost 35 seconds back towards the end of the race. His team mate didn't make it to the end suffering gearbox woes early in the race. Ron Dennis offered plenty of opportunities to have his sour-puss, dour look available for any press hound with a camera.

Williams-BMW didn't fare much better. Hell, even Sir Frank stayed home knowing there was no sense to fly half way around the world to see your cars lose. Patrick Head made the trip to see Juan Pablo come in fourth and the other Schumacher blow his motor up with just 5 laps to go.

Everyone else suffered mechanical problems. Jenson Button was the first of the lapped cars to finish and captured the last available point of the season. His team mate was out around the half way point. The Sauber of Heidfeld finished, Massa's didn't. Mika Salo had another top ten finish his career in F1 after being ingloriously sacked by Toyota.

His team mate, the unluckiest man in F1, had a shunt in qualifying and wasn't medically released, much to the dismay of the wee Scot. McNish wasn't too pleased about not being able to start his last race, meaning the USGP was the last of his career. Expect him to return to racing privateer Ferraris and maybe even go back to Herr Joest's Audi squad and get another win at Le Mans. Rumor has it that there may be a Bentley ride in the cards. What, being a closet Bentley Boy isn't allowed for Ferrari owners?

Edmund's Jaguar and Webber's Minardi were the last two cars running at the end of the race much to the dismay of the driver's fan clubs. All six of them.

With the results of this race in, Ferrari scored 221 this season. As many as all of the other teams combined. This level of dominance hasn't been seen in a couple of years and can be seen as the pinnacle of the Ferrari come back that started in 1993 when the board put their faith in a Frenchman running a rally team. The problem of reaching the top is there is only one way to go. Several teams, funded and backed by multi-billion dollar corporations, want to be the one to push the red giant off of the hill. Only time will tell how long this will last.

Fair weather Ferrari fans, enjoy it while you can. Die hard Tifosi, keep writing the checks for the GT cars, Le Mans is calling.