United States Grand Prix - Discussion

[Dylan]

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.

Exactly.

[Jus-10]

Man i am so tired...it's now just after 3pm and I have been up all night (except for a 1hour power-nap whilst Ace Ventura was on)

So I am one of the suckers that stayed up and watched the entire race...I think I was just so tired that it sort of bored me in to a dull sense of nothingness...by the end it was 6am and the wife was getting up to go to work...

I feel sorry for all the teams involved...it was a major f*ck up. But then if you want controversy, F1 can usually deliver!

To pin any blame at all for this on Ferrari is absolute rubbish...so they didn't back the rest of the teams (who run Michelin and were obviously affected)...big deal. They technically had no reason or justification to pull out. As someone breifly touched on earlier, what would have happened if the situation was reversed? OK it's merely speculation, but can anyone here honestly imagine, Renault, McLaren, Toyota, BAR, WIlliams, etc backing Ferrari (no one would be too fussed about Jordan and Minardi as they aren't a threat)?? Come on, of course they wouldn't...it would have simply been added as another problem to Ferrari's troubled season....

As for Bridgestone having knowledge about the resurfacing of the track, we know that their affiliate company, Firestone, provides tyres for one of the US series of car races. OK so what?! It's a big friggen track...it's not top secret and any half-wit would have considered the developments/changes to the track when assessing the tyre needs for the weekend...It seems like it should be standard procedure to me.

Perhaps Michelin were just getting a bit too cocky and relaxed a bit knowing that Bridgestone had been off the pace all year?

A retrospective opinion is pretty easy to give, and to be honest I don't know what the true answer/solution should have been. Michelin screwed up and that was the beginning. The FIA then failed to attempt to resolve the issue...No one had the balls to make a call so everything turned to sh*t....That's what we know and it sure will be interesting to see what comes of this!

[pornstar]

Yeah thats right blame the FIA Come on, how is it the FIA's fault.

ONE tyre per race rule, wasnt introduced overnight, it was introduced at the start of the season.

FACT: Michelin ****ed up, they can bring 2 tyres, if they arent sure, they bring one racey and one safe option, they didnt bring a safe enough one. If they dont have enough info about the track, wouldnt u bring an even safer tyre to cover that base? Michelin ****ed up.

FACT: Ferrari and Bridgestone are not at fault, they did everything within the rules, if Michelin cant do their job, get out of the F1, as everyone has said, its the pinaccle of motorsport, if ur not at the pinaccle, go and sponsor hyundai gp or something.

FACT: Making a chicane to slow the cars down is nonsense, Webber has already touched on the fact that you cant just put in a chicane and expect drivers to be able to take it safely albeit at a lower speed without ever seeing it, driven it.

FACT: FIA might hvae made shit rules, but they have been in place all year round.

Bring on the 1 tyre manufacturer I say, and get rid of Michelin, Bridgestone supplies all teams, allow them to develop gearboxes etc but tyres have a control tyre.

And yeah, good work "god" you finally broke ur drought, u won in 2005.

[JDM.Power]

do i get 1point? since i got Trulli right?? he came 7th ....but he didnt start.

[Hondavirgin]

Yep, blame for this incident is primarily with michelin, bottom line, they pushed the envelope a little too far and got done. Then, the FIA, Bernie and the teams compunded the problem by not thinking up a solution or being sensible.

However, if michelin knew about this 2 days beforehand then why not fix it, they couldn't really expect a track to be modified to fix their problems could they? I think they actually flew replacement tyres in, and Charlie Whiting said they would allow tyre chages during the race for safety reasons (i.e. you can come in and replace the tyres and we wont penalise), but they didn't take that.

[Jus-10]

Here is a link to the transcript of the press conference:

http://www.grandprix.com/race/r740sunpc.html

I love this one:

Q: (Joe Saward - F1 Grand Prix Special) Can I ask all three of you, if your tyre manufacturer said to you that your tire couldn't make it more than ten laps, would you race?

Barrichello: There was only one solution. If the problem was on 13, just come into the pits every lap.

Everyone is going to (or is Andy ) hang sh*t on Schumey for this...he has never said anything about how proud he is of the victory or anything of the sort. I mean give him some credit - I think after 84 previous GP victories he has some sort of an idea of how to win a GP legitimately.

What were Ferrari supposed to do? Not race and then face backlash for breaking some other rule? They officially had no reason not to race. Whilst the Michelin teams withdrew on the direction of Michelin, Ferrari would have been withdrawing for no reason other than a moral one, and no doubt they would have suffered...

We know Ferrari can be a bit cold and lacking in morals at times, but they were in a compeletely different situation to the other teams as they were technically not affected in any way...

No doubt it will make the Ferrari-haters hate Ferrari even more.

[Vivski]

FACT: Making a chicane to slow the cars down is nonsense, Webber has already touched on the fact that you cant just put in a chicane and expect drivers to be able to take it safely albeit at a lower speed without ever seeing it, driven it.

Are you suggesting that the best drivers in the world could not handle a chicane? If rally drivers can do it, then so can F1 drivers.
I'm not convinced that it would save the tyres, there may still have been tyre failures, but the risk of injury would have been significantly reduced.

It's not rediculous to put a chicane in. It would be an interesting challenge for the drivers and it would've been a really interesting race. Adding a chicane certainly would not have made it any more dangerous.

Ferrari would still have their points, but the US fans would have seen Kimi, Juan, Alonso, Fisi, Jenson, etc doing battle. Imagine if it was the Australian GP instead and you were in the crowd. Wouldn't you prefer to see some racing instead of a 2 car race?

The blame can be spread thin and wide. The majority is on Michelin, no-one is disputing that. But Ferrari, Jordan and the FIA cannot dodge criticism by pointing at Michelin. They too had a hand in the lack of a spectacle and the subsequent repercussions for F1 at Indy.

All three were within their rights and the all important rules to do what was done. But the rules are designed to uphold the spirit of Formula 1, to make it a great motorsport event. The rules betrayed the sport on this occasion.

That is my opinion. I blame Michelin for not having the right tyres. But I blame other parties for not finding a solution so I could get up at 4am to watch an interesting contest.

One good thing came out of it though. Had a few laps of onboard footage with the Minardis. They were working so hard just to keep the thing straight. As a driver, that was a lot of fun to watch.

[Vivski]

I don't think people will blame the drivers. Michael and Rubens were both saddened by the race. They'll take the points and they're entitled to do so, but Michael acknowledged that it was not a sweet victory for him.

The drivers were just as helpless as the crowd in this one.

[Hondavirgin]

Are you suggesting that the best drivers in the world could not handle a chicane? If rally drivers can do it, then so can F1 drivers.
I'm not convinced that it would save the tyres, there may still have been tyre failures, but the risk of injury would have been significantly reduced.

It's not rediculous to put a chicane in. It would be an interesting challenge for the drivers and it would've been a really interesting race. Adding a chicane certainly would not have made it any more dangerous.

I think what he was referring to an saying was that changing the track and sending them out to race through a chicane they have never seen before, requiring braking from high speed on a turning bit of track, isn't feasible.

and its just wrong to change a track coz someone isn't fast enough (they could have gone slow through the corner, its not realistic, but its possible).

[THRUST]

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.

Who said anything about slowing down for the corner, I said just to go slower and so did the FIA, they managed to get thru alright on the warm up let, just go super slow.

And they wont plough into the back of each other as they'll be expecting them to brake similarly. These f1 drivers can adapt you know...

[Vivski]

It's not realistic and it's dangerous. I don't see how it's not feasible to change the track. If done properly it would not be dangerous, the track is wide enough for it. It would be a level playing field for everyone.

I referred to rallying, 'cos they drive on the limit without seeing the course more than a few times. I'd love to see how the F1 drivers dealt with it. It would sort the awesome drivers from the great ones.

It would not be unfair to anyone, 'cos Michelin would not be racing for points. But it would be a lot of fun and worth staying up 'til 6am for.

[Hondavirgin]

I wasn't suggesting they go slow through that corner, thats why i said it wasn't realistic.

Rally drivers are not travelling at 290km/h+ an inch off the ground when they come up to those bends either, and they have also driven through them at least twice on the recci.