USA Grand Prix

[Steve]

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[imi]

Hmmm well lets just say we DIDN'T race today.

 

My Boss has been saying for years, "We'll all be out of job come this time next year!" I recon this time he may well be right.

 

BRAVO my Friend - a great team you work for.

 

Im suprised that the williams have been off their best this season....cars just not coming together...but being a quality team that you guys are..I am sure you will pull it all together.

[Bobbeh]

I feel for Trulli, first Toyota pole and this crap happens!

[terribleturner]

Real shame about the race, but if your told you can't use the tyres in the race from the tyre manufacture there's not alot you can do is there. I feel for all the drivers who couldn't race and for the poor fans who made it to the venue to watch 6 cars potter around the track. I think i turned it off after the first 5 laps. As said before, i think we'll be saying to the USA GP.

[paul_y3k]

Brundell's (?) commentary was good though.. telling Bernie to go buy some sensible pills and then at the end of th GP saying that if shuy did a voctory lap he'd go and punch him ...

[Guest chiefvinso]

LOL That was funny, I think I would have done the same - flown out there especially to punch him. The two ferrari boys walked away from the poodium while the jordan guy was over the moon!

[Tricky]

The problem was that the whole circuit is diamond cutted (little groves about every 5 or 10mm cut in to the tarmac) because the NASCAR’s run there and they have shit down force! The F1 cars run about 15times more down force, this coupled together with the faulty tyres caused the tyres to pop! Michelin did fly in new tyres but couldn’t guarantee they didn’t have the same fault! every team said they would pull out of the race if they didn’t build a chicane, all except Ferrari who to be fair were pissed on, and fucked over, at ever opportunity when they were a little player a few years ago, so they tend to be arseholes now! Personally I don’t agree with there decisions but I can see where they are coming from! But for some reason the FIA wouldn’t allow the race track to build a chicane! Which is a joke! although its not as easy as some would think to stick a chicane on a track! there has to be a good line of sight and the chicane has to adhere to rules and there has to be breaking points for the drivers! So in MY opinion its partly the FIA’s fault for being so bloody minded as they had time to sort all that out before the race! But Michelin have to hold there hands up! In all 11 tyres failed during qualifying! Kart run there too and there tyres hold out but they don’t have to go for 60 laps like the rules now state in F1!

 

But the problem was, that with the culture of litigation in America if a car had crashed and hurt a member of public or a steward the teams could have been nailed, especially as they knew that there was a problem with the tyres before they started!

[imi]

Stirling moss was on radio 4 this morning telling Max mosley (who was also on the programme) that he didnt understand the fuss about the chicane. He said that the michelin teams were prepared to put the bridgestone guys on front, were prepared to race without points, and the chicane WOULD HAVE BEEN SAFE.

 

Do I trust Stirling Moss over Max Muppet....you bet I do...

[FaithStalker]

I for one am totally against the rules and regs curently in F1, and dont rate Max Mosely at all. **BUT** on this occasion i can see his point and understand his actions.

I know everyone admits that the Blame was Michelin's and that something should have been done. but why place that responsibility on the FIA ??????????

Why is the responsibility of putting teams on the grid that have been given infrerior equipment the FIA's problem?

Why?

MONEY!!

 

Here's how it really is :

Michelin broke all the rules regarding its tyre. It provided teams with a tyre so on the edge that it couldnt be safe. Under the rules must provide a 2nd "backup" compound that must be considered safe and durable (i.e the HARD compound). They did not provide that, they broke the rule's.

Then they wanted to break more rules, they wanted to fly in tyres that were safe and race them. the FIA said this was *OK* and that the stewards at the end of the race would lodge a complaint with the FIA. the FIA would then consider if it was a safety issue and punish accordingly (no race bans, just points / demotions of position)

 

***Here is where the MONEY comes in.

option 1 - Use the new tyres flown in:

The Teams would have had to race on those tyres with no previous running or setup.

they would be slow, very slow. NOT GOOD for sponsers to see Minardi passing a McLaren. The TEAMS REJECTED THIS IDEA

 

option 2/3/4/5 : Suggested by the FIA

Run very high pressures in the tyre: TEAMS again would be slow, rejected - see option 1

Change Tyres every 10 laps : rejected - See option 1

Run slow in the problem corner : FIA would speedtrap all michelin runners and give

drive through penalties for those exceeding the speed. Therefore making everything fair and above board for the michelin runners. rejected - see option 1

Run through the pitlane - rejected see option 1

 

do you see where i am going with this?

 

final option :

convince the public its someone elses problem and try and force the FIA to put in a chicane, and if not dont start the race.

FIA cannot change the circuit without prior running on the track, the FIA would be totally LIABLE FOR SUING if an accident/injury occured after it altered the track without following its own safety procedures. Safety procedures which have been agreed by every country that F1 races in and by which they are allowed to run a race.

 

The teams therefore decided it wouldnt be in their best interests to allow Minardi's and Jordan's to lap them 2/3 times in a race (even if they were in thier own "group" racing") and so decided to not start the race

 

...well not quite true....

 

they did "start" the race, they formed on the grid - why? because each team would be fined 250,000USD per car, if they do not put a car on the grid.

 

Safety was it?

 

as always with F1

 

...money...

 

and I havnt even mentioned how unfair any of these options would have been to Bridgestone.

[imi]

Good post Faith.

 

"Run slow in the problem corner : FIA would speedtrap all michelin runners and give

drive through penalties for those exceeding the speed. Therefore making everything fair and above board for the michelin runners."

 

How you this be safe. you have one car entering turn 13 @ 50 mph more than the other, entering the straight at a much higher speed than the michelin runners, this could be very dangerous.

 

Wouldnt it be like driving on a motorway @ 70mph, and you suddenly see a slow arse BMW driver in the right lane driving @ 40 mph....?

[Marco]

they did "start" the race, they formed on the grid - why? because each team would be fined 250,000USD per car, if they do not put a car on the grid.

 

They didn't really start the race, they did a formation lap, but weren't on the grid when the start signal was given...

[TLicense]

I for one am totally against the rules and regs curently in F1, and dont rate Max Mosely at all. **BUT** on this occasion i can see his point and understand his actions.

I know everyone admits that the Blame was Michelin's and that something should have been done. but why place that responsibility on the FIA ??????????

Why is the responsibility of putting teams on the grid that have been given infrerior equipment the FIA's problem?

 

[/Quote]

 

Agreed, most teams also place the cause at Michelin's door.

 

 

Here's how it really is :

Michelin broke all the rules regarding its tyre. It provided teams with a tyre so on the edge that it couldnt be safe. Under the rules must provide a 2nd "backup" compound that must be considered safe and durable (i.e the HARD compound). They did not provide that, they broke the rule's.

Then they wanted to break more rules, they wanted to fly in tyres that were safe and race them. the FIA said this was *OK* and that the stewards at the end of the race would lodge a complaint with the FIA. the FIA would then consider if it was a safety issue and punish accordingly (no race bans, just points / demotions of position)

 

 

That wasn't the case. I've seen a copy of the actual letter that was sent from the FIA to Michelin, they basically insisted that all rules otherwise the usual penalties would be given.

 

 

***Here is where the MONEY comes in.

option 1 - Use the new tyres flown in:

The Teams would have had to race on those tyres with no previous running or setup.

they would be slow, very slow. NOT GOOD for sponsers to see Minardi passing a McLaren. The TEAMS REJECTED THIS IDEA

 

[/Quote]

 

Again wrong conclusion, we were told we would be given the penalty which is exclusion from the race. Further penalties could be exclusion from future events.

 

 

option 2/3/4/5 : Suggested by the FIA

Run very high pressures in the tyre: TEAMS again would be slow, rejected - see option 1

 

[/Quote]

 

This was done during Saturday morning practice and qualifying. The tyres used during practice were inspected and seen to have indications that they would fail.

 

 

Change Tyres every 10 laps : rejected - See option 1

 

[/Quote]

 

A) They're would not be enough sets of tyres

B) You would be penalised as above.

 

 

Run slow in the problem corner : FIA would speedtrap all michelin runners and give

drive through penalties for those exceeding the speed. Therefore making everything fair and above board for the michelin runners. rejected - see option 1

 

[/Quote]

 

Michelin could not say how slow to go to make the tyres safe, and it would not be safe to have such large differences in vehicle speeds. In the end Michelin actually said it would be unsafe to race on their tyres. No speeds were mentioned at that point, it was just unsafe to race on them.

 

 

 

Run through the pitlane - rejected see option 1

 

[/Quote]

 

That's the first time I've seen this mentioned anywhere. It wouldn't be safe anyway, imagine trying to pit with all the cars "racing" at 50mph down the pitlane.

 

 

do you see where i am going with this?

 

final option :

convince the public its someone elses problem and try and force the FIA to put in a chicane, and if not dont start the race.

 

[/Quote]

 

I don't think it's the FIA's fault, and the configuration of the circuit has to be agreed beforehand, having said that chicane's have been added at the last minute before.

 

 

FIA cannot change the circuit without prior running on the track, the FIA would be totally LIABLE FOR SUING if an accident/injury occured after it altered the track without following its own safety procedures. Safety procedures which have been agreed by every country that F1 races in and by which they are allowed to run a race.

 

The teams therefore decided it wouldnt be in their best interests to allow Minardi's and Jordan's to lap them 2/3 times in a race (even if they were in thier own "group" racing") and so decided to not start the race

 

[/Quote]

 

I don't think it was a case of letting them lap us or not. It was purely down to safety, and the possible chance of litigation.

 

 

...well not quite true....

 

they did "start" the race, they formed on the grid - why? because each team would be fined 250,000USD per car, if they do not put a car on the grid.

 

[/Quote]

 

True, damage limitation.

 

 

Safety was it?

 

as always with F1

 

...money...

 

and I havnt even mentioned how unfair any of these options would have been to Bridgestone.

 

They would be unfair to Bridgestone runners, hence why the only option was to retire the cars.

Can't see how it could have panned out differently with the current rules. That's where the FIA comes in, if the rules allowed some flexibility then maybe something could have been sorted, but they had painted themselves into a corner, which left the Michelin runners with no alternative.

[Chase]

Some of the correspondence between the FIA and other parties is on the FIA website.

[FaithStalker]

Tlicence - Im sorry but your attitude and the attitude of the other Michelin teams is what caused the race not to go ahead as a full F1 grid.

Im sorry if you think that running OFFLINE in turn 13 at 100mph or filing through the pitlane at 50mph wouldnt be good enough for you, but its a dam site better than just 6 cars on the track, you forget that all teams insist that everyone they compete against is within the rules, there can be no compromise, and has never been in the past. the only difference in this case is the amount of teams it affected.

For some reason that is justification to change or ask for rules to be broken.

 

some specific point you made :

"Again wrong conclusion, we were told we would be given the penalty which is exclusion from the race. Further penalties could be exclusion from future events."

I think you need to check what Max Mosely stated in a press release he gave. He specifically stated that the rules regarding tyre changes is a steward issue that is then reported to the FIA. If the FIA were to deem that the tyre change was in the interests of safety and an failure could be proved then there would not be a problem.

So to also link that to your statement regarding the "high pressures were used but indications were that they were going to fail" then here is your best option.

Start on the faulty tyres, go directly to the pitlane as you did, and then change to the tyres being flown in (only change once and run on those tyres the whole race). You would be slow, but at least racing and racing at the required speeds to compete for points. Then show you "indications it was going to fail" to the FIA at a meeting sometime in the future.

Please remember this fact - its is *NOT* against the FIA rules to change tyres where safety of the driver was considered to be compromised. Proving it was a safety requirement is the responsibility of the teams.

 

And finally im going to restate where was the 2nd set of HARD tyres that are based on safety not performance ??? why were these not used?

Because Michelin hadnt produced them that way.

 

The teams have all been happy with Michelin for putting them on the front of the grid by using tyres on the edge of safety, now its blown up in the teams face they pass the buck over to the FIA and blame them for not racing.

 

Grow a pair. Its F1.

 

Reading today about being summond to the FIA, i cant see anything unfair about the charges against the Teams, I hope they get a sufficient penalty befitting the damage they have done to F1. For me that would be removal of half of all championship points awarded so far for the constructor.

 

Anyone else realise that BAR is already under probation from thier dodgy Fuel Tank. Its quite possible they could be thrown out!!!!!!

[Whitesupraboy2]

Im sorry if you think that running OFFLINE in turn 13 at 100mph or filing through the pitlane at 50mph wouldnt be good enough for you, but its a dam site better than just 6 cars on the track,

 

I think this must be the most stupid comment / thing possible......

 

i know we will send all the cars off line onto the marbles so there tires get all dirty and crap on them, then they can accerlarate off of turn 13 and down a 200mph straight......and now brake! or even worse coz they offline at still high speed spin on the corner.

 

send through pitlane every lap..... the pit lane would constantly have cars in it and thats a accident waiting to happen. cars would be having pit stops for 25secs as a queue of cars passed through,as they cant release them.

 

So if the ferrari car overheated and retired due to this,imagine them going nuts at that idea.

[imi]

I hope they get a sufficient penalty befitting the damage they have done to F1. For me that would be removal of half of all championship points awarded so far for the constructor.

 

Anyone else realise that BAR is already under probation from thier dodgy Fuel Tank. Its quite possible they could be thrown out!!!!!!

 

An Idea for the FIA

 

I say revoke all the michelin teams of their championships points.

 

Distribute those amongst the Brigestone runners based on the number of races each of those drivers have won.

 

Based on those rules, most of the points would go to Ferrari (putting them on top) - which is the objective of the exercise.

 

Since BAR done have any points - I say ban them for the rest of the year - no room for cheaters....certianly not favourable ones.

 

NICE ONE

 

[Kopite]

runnin offline would be a terrible idea as WSB2 said - ok the marbles would clear eventually but there'd be more than a few spins and it would be totall unsafe. as would running through the pitlane. the teams felt it was also unsafe to run on these new tyres that were flown in as they hadn't tested them before. personally, i don;t see why this wasn't sorted earlier with the teams being allowed a practice session on these new tyres. i also read somewhere that Michelin refused to allow the teams to use the race tyres as they were classed as faulty. surely there'd of been a legal issue there?

[Gordon F]

Anyone else realise that BAR is already under probation from thier dodgy Fuel Tank. Its quite possible they could be thrown out!!!!!!

Unlikely I would have thought. They were advised not to race on safety grounds by their tyre supplier. No way out of that one.

[imi]

 

So if the ferrari car overheated and retired due to this,imagine them going nuts at that idea.

 

 

exactly. ridiculous idea there....

 

heres a tip for the future..

 

Think about how the rule would effect Ferrari.

If it does effect them in a Negatvie way

Then think of another Rule.

 

I'm thinking like the FIA.....WOW

[Kopite]

personally i think the Ferrari bashing is a bit over the top - they do get a lot of help from the FIA and they could of been a bit more helpful in terms of this case, BUT Jordan also changed their minds and ran. The buck stops with Michelin, they shouldn't of ran their tyre that close to the limit. other high speed tracks have been resurfaced over time, how can they be sure there won't be problems later in the season?

[imi]

This has all happened due to the stupid rule of running ONE SINGLE TYRE for quali and the race.

 

The idea was on Safety grounds, but judging from all the blow-ups that have happened this season......it only proves that its NOT SAFE and certainly hasnt slowed the cars down either..

 

here is one example - When Raikennen was forced to retire thx to the suspension failure (due to the damaged tyre) - that accident could have been fatal for raikennen as well as for BUTTON.

[Gordon F]

Can't see how it could have panned out differently with the current rules. That's where the FIA comes in, if the rules allowed some flexibility then maybe something could have been sorted, but they had painted themselves into a corner, which left the Michelin runners with no alternative.

Tony, you cant have flexible rules in F1 or everybody starts to cheat. Check out the launch control, traction control, flexible wing sagas of recent years.

[Kopite]

This has all happened due to the stupid rule of running ONE SINGLE TYRE for quali and the race.

 

The idea was on Safety grounds, but judging from all the blow-ups that have happened this season......it only proves that its NOT SAFE and certainly hasnt slowed the cars down either..

 

here is one example - When Raikennen was forced to retire thx to the suspension failure (due to the damaged tyre) - that accident could have been fatal for raikennen as well as for BUTTON.

 

agreed! i hate the single tyre rule. the excitement now is wondering whether Driver A will make it to the finish with his degenerating tyre. the overtaking isnt racing so much either - if someone's got a buggered up tyre, then he has no chance against a slower car / worse driver with good tyres

[TLicense]

Faith,

 

I'm in no way saying that what happened was down to the FIA, in fact I think I mentioned that we're quite happy to say Michelin cocked up.

 

You don't seem to be understanding Michelin's position. The meat of it is this:-

 

They delivered two types of tyres to the race track. Neither of which were up to the job due to a manufacturing issue. (Nothing to do with performance)

They suggested running higher pressures, but the evidence of potential failure was still there.

They then suggested running a seperate batch of tyres, but then found that they couldn't guarantee that the same problem would not occur with those tyres. Hence why they issued a statement saying that they could not let us race using ANY of the tyres they had.

 

Once that statement had been made, there was no way any teams could run.

 

If you think it's a money thing, you're massively deluded. Think of the damage that this has caused F1, in particular the teams involved with the controversy, most of which have US based major sponsors.

 

The only way we could not breach any rules and not endanger the drivers/marshalls and public was not to run.

 

To be honest I know it was a poor show, but it's just an extension of what has happened before, so don't understand what possible case the teams have to answer to?

 

Nobody cried and shouted when Ferrari retired their car in Barcelona due to bad tyres. They weren't penalised.

Nobody cried and shouted when Minardi decided not to take the grid due to potential rear wing failure a couple of years ago. They weren't penalised.

 

OK these incidents still left the majority of the cars to run, but why should it be any different if 19 cars race or if 6 cars race?

 

I also agree that the rules have to be solid. The point I was trying to make was that we were keeping to the rules that the FIA stipulate. Any other outcome would have meant we would have infringed these rules in some way.

[Branners]

This has all happened due to the stupid rule of running ONE SINGLE TYRE for quali and the race.

 

The idea was on Safety grounds, but judging from all the blow-ups that have happened this season......it only proves that its NOT SAFE and certainly hasnt slowed the cars down either..

 

here is one example - When Raikennen was forced to retire thx to the suspension failure (due to the damaged tyre) - that accident could have been fatal for raikennen as well as for BUTTON.

 

heaven forbid they should put some danger and chance in to a race Limiting the tyres to one set has been the best move they have done for years. I dont believe any of the other changes in F1 have changed the grid and finishing order quite so much. I had given up on F1 but this year its way more interesting than in previous years.

 

JB