United States Grand Prix - Discussion

this is so sad really, and considering there was a solution that coulda saved this from happening. screw the rules... i mean to say "oh well these are the rules" is all good and well, but is it worth killing the USGP? i dont think so...

and for all the teams to agree to a compromise except for the selfish and arogant ferrari along with the governing body makes it worse.

from what i read bridgestone had prior data on the effect from the new surface courtasy of IRL, whereas michellan did not have such data to use.

pure and simple, regardless of what coulda been done, nothing was done.

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Originally Posted by hihidamon

More importantly, this saga proves the inability of the FIA (Max Mo$ley) to improve safety and reduce costs, where safety and cost cutting were the main reasons for bringing out these stupid 05 regulations. And now, they want to reverse all the 04/05 regulations back to what it was in 08... What a bunch of idiots! :thumbdwn:

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Yeah well a good way to save money is by not having races.

I get the feeling bernie (and Max) wouldn't care if it was just a 20 car ferrari championship :(

Admittedly there was a mistake made by michelin, but imagine if it was a one tyre manufacturer (as proposed). Then ALL cars would be unable to race. Bet a chicane woulda gone up quick smart then.

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Originally Posted by Hondavirgin

what a waste of time getting up early, went to bed after half of it once i heard button was walking out of the paddock.....

Berine's shot himself in the foot basically, i wouldn't be surprised if the US GP folds in a year or so after this debacle, who's going to go?!

Did they still spray the champagne?

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Danica Patrick can save F1 in America provided she gets/wants a seat.

Pity the F1 didn't have the chance to showcase it's wares in a country dominated by the boring IRL and CHAMP car series. It's now hard to say that the F1 puts them to shame.

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Originally Posted by nEUROtic

Yeah well a good way to save money is by not having races.

I get the feeling bernie (and Max) wouldn't care if it was just a 20 car ferrari championship :(

Admittedly there was a mistake made by michelin, but imagine if it was a one tyre manufacturer (as proposed). Then ALL cars would be unable to race. Bet a chicane woulda gone up quick smart then.

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I think similar things (not exact situation though) happened before in CHampcar at the michigan500 couple years back. The cars were lapping over 400kmh at one of the banked turn and some drivers (I was told the fact that most Champcars drivers were not as fit as F1 drivers - driver with tummys like bobby rahal could still race competitively hehe) felt dizzy and/or fainted during qualifying. They cancelled the race and refund the tickets for that year.

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Originally Posted by berniebern

Danica Patrick can save F1 in America provided she gets/wants a seat.

Pity the F1 didn't have the chance to showcase it's wares in a country dominated by the boring IRL and CHAMP car series. It's now hard to say that the F1 puts them to shame.

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Hehe, F1 will have a chance if Danica Patrick gets to drive a F1 car in bikinis hehe :thumbsup: :D

What a piece of shit. ALL the other teams said they would not race if the chicane wasn't put in, including Jordan and Minardi, except FERRARI. How ****in typical, Todt strikes again. Even though it is purely Michelin's fault, this behaviour is bullshit. Even Stoddart said he didn't want to race, but because the Jordans line up he did as well, to try and grab that podium I suppose. WEll i fkin hope you ferrari fans are pleased, the rest of the world is mega pissed off! Myself included.

what ferrari is doing is completely within regulations so they are beyond criticism in that respect

but it can be said that ferrari are about the MOST un-sportsman like team in F1... still remember that time when barichello had to pull over to LET shuey win a couple of years back... that was awful...

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Originally Posted by Javed

What a piece of shit. ALL the other teams said they would not race if the chicane wasn't put in, including Jordan and Minardi, except FERRARI. How ****in typical, Todt strikes again. Even though it is purely Michelin's fault, this behaviour is bullshit. Even Stoddart said he didn't want to race, but because the Jordans line up he did as well, to try and grab that podium I suppose. WEll i fkin hope you ferrari fans are pleased, the rest of the world is mega pissed off! Myself included.

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Well calm down mate, I guess you cant blame ferrari for this one. It was Michellin's own mistake, technically speaking Michellin and their teams should be the only ones to be responsible to the consequences, but their competitor ie bridgestone who produced 100% legal and safe tyres within the sporting limit. The situation is sad but Michellin cant expect the FIA/competitors to make adjustments to suit their unsafe tyres.

At the end of the day, it was the worst race I have ever watched in my entire life, as a F1 fan. :rolleyes:

It was a bad race but a simple soloution for the Michelin runners would have been just to go slower during that turn. sure they would have lost a couple of seconds but atleast it would have been better than this.

Michelin couldn't come up with the goods with a tire that could go so fast so go slower. Simple solution. I blame all the teams that didn't run.

Its not the FIA's fault as they didn't say that the michelin teams can't run

As for modifying the track to put in a chicane thats a joke

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Originally Posted by THRUST

It was a bad race but a simple soloution for the Michelin runners would have been just to go slower during that turn. sure they would have lost a couple of seconds but atleast it would have been better than this.

Michelin couldn't come up with the goods with a tire that could go so fast so go slower. Simple solution. I blame all the teams that didn't run.

Its not the FIA's fault as they didn't say that the michelin teams can't run

As for modifying the track to put in a chicane thats a joke

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There is NO way that slowing down through that corner is safe. As soon as you lift off the throttle in a F1 car, you slow down at a high rate because of the downforce. Imagine following another car around the track going around that banked corner and then they slow down and you plough into the back of them. I wouldn't really call that a good soloution either to be honest.

That part of the track was perfect for a chicane. It would have been so easy to put a left-right-left in there, paint it on and chuck some tyres out there. Then run the first 5 laps behind the safety car to let the drivers get used to it. Then away they go.

Then strip all the Michelin runners of their points and everyone is happy. The fans have a race, the manufacturers fight for the win and get exposure, the Brigdestone teams get their points. It would have been a quick thinking solution and a very interesting race.

Bernie's team is not capable of making a quick thinking decisions. They only know how to stick to their guns and not compromise. What we saw last night could have been avoided through a smart decision, but what happened was a very dumb solution.

Now everyone is left feeling dirty. And who wins? No-one wins, everyone loses. Not even Ferrari wins, 'cos now they're hated even more. Very un-sporting. The illusion that F1 is a sport was blown apart last night.

Michelin are accepting the blame for not having the right tyres. But everyone knew that on Friday. 7 cars' tyres were inspected and were on the verge of failing. That was 2 days from the race. 2 days to come up with a good sporting solution. The solution was a 6 car race which will cost everyone a lot of money and scar the US F1 GP for years.


I'm appaulled, but not surprised, that a good solution could not be found so we still had a good race to watch while Bridgestone teams still got their points.

But it was hysterical when Michael and Rubens almost came together!! Haha.

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Originally Posted by THRUST

As for modifying the track to put in a chicane thats a joke

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They cut the greens differently in golf all the time to be more/less competitive so why not alter the course in F1? It therefore should have been turned from a race into a spectacle. Afterall, the US grand prix is still relatively new and the exposure is needed in arguably the most lucrative and untouched market (refer last paragraph). All Michelin teams agreed to forfeit any points if there was a change to the track so it should have been done, for the sake of F1.

*** The brickworks track attracted 300,000 for the indy 500 a few weeks ago. Only 150,000 turned up to the F1.