US Formula 1 race great for Ferarri, bad for Michelin

[Robert Rossato]

I was at the "race" yesterday.  What a friggin' disaster.  I ended up
leaving after about 10 laps as I had a 4-hr drive to my brother's place
in St. Louis, and the results were a foregone conclusion so there was no
point in staying to watch.  

The state police were starting to get nervous and spreading out
everywhere at the facility, and for good reason as some yahoos were
starting to throw stuff out on the track.  Some beer on Turn 1, some
water bottles on Turn 8, which Barrichello ran over.  Unfortunately, a
lot of fans were taking it out on Indy and the cars on the track, but in
my opinion, the blame for this entire fiasco rests solely on Michelin's
shoulders.
  
Michelin started having problems on Friday.  Ralf Schumacher blew a tire
and crashed into the wall at Turn 13.  He was not seriously hurt as
someone else stated.  He was standing outside his car and talking to the
safety personnel after the accident.  He ended up with a concussion and
could've driven but they decided to not take chances and Toyota's test
driver took over for the weekend.

The track had been recently resurfaced, and Bridgestone, which is owned
by Firestone, had received some data from them based on their experience
at the Indy 500.   But Michelin was aware of the resurfacing and came to
Indy completely unprepared.  

Saturday night they petitioned FIA to have a chicane added to turn 13
prior to the start of the race to slow the speeds down.  FIA rightly
refused and gave them three options.  They could tell their
teams/drivers to slow down in the areas of concern, turns 13 and 1; they
could start the race with new tires (new compound tires were flown in
Sunday morning though they weren't guaranteed to be much better) and go
to the back of the pack (not a big hit as there was only 6 non-Michelin
cars); or they could change their tires throughout the race as
necessary, which FIA would allow from a safety perspective, as long as
they didn't get a competitive advantage from it.  Michelin refused.  

They came unprepared, and wanted to have those that were prepared, to
acquiesce to new rules so they wouldn't be at a disadvantage.  Michelin
didn't refuse to run because of safety.  They did it because they
couldn't get their way, and in the process they screwed all the fans at
the race, and dealt a big, big blow to F1 racing in the US.

Indy Speedway will be pursuing the possibility of getting the
sanctioning fee they paid returned as well as refunds for ticket
holders, but obviously they won't be able to do anything about the
travel expenses of those attending, a large percentage of which were
from overseas.  The guys camped next to me flew in from Denmark for this
race.  Somehow I doubt they'll be likely to come back any time soon,
assuming there is even a future for F1 in the US.  Thanks Michelin.

Bob

> -----Original Message-----
> From: quattro-bounces at audifans.com 
> [mailto:quattro-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of LL - NY
> Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 9:52 AM
> To: Frederick Smith
> Cc: quattro at audifans.com
> Subject: Re: US Formula 1 race great for Ferarri, bad for Michelin
> 
> 
> Addendum. From reading the article Fred posted, IMHO, Michelin
> should've at least made a compound that would've survived the banking,
> (isn't there at least one other banked track on the F1 
> circuit?) and it
> really would've been up to the drivers to not kill the tires 
> on the infield. 
> The reality is, although they would've likely given up the 
> 1st 6 positions,
> they now pay points up to position 10, so they still would've 
> run as the
> best of the rest. Poor baby Michelin.
> 
> LL - NY - disappointed with the entire F1 community
> 
> On 6/20/05, LL - NY <larrycleung at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Since Michelin had "success" (only one failure, 
> unfortunately putting
> > Ralf out for the remainder of the season) last year, they 
> had a lot of
> > data. I do know the one tire rule has significantly rattled both
> > Michelin and Bridgestone, but one would've thought that they'd
> > anticipated better the wear issues. Since the rules stipulated that
> > they could change ONE (1) tire during the race for safety, they
> > could've started the race. Then possibly DQ (but allow to run) the
> > Michelin cars if they needed to change additional tires. Just a
> > thought (again, having not seen the race, 'cuz I live in 
> nowheresville
> > and I don't have my Satellite hook-up (yet!)).
> > 
> > LL - NY
> > 
> > On 6/19/05, Frederick Smith <smitty at pcrealm.net> wrote:
> > > One more thing, Michelin knew that INDY would be a 
> difficult venue for
> > > them 
> http://www.bahraingp.com.bh/en/content/formula1_news_> 113011.asp
> > >
> >
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