Wilchwitz

Let me say that I admire Ferrari. Great cars, great competitors. The auto world would be much poorer without them. And I think Michael Schumacher is one of the all time greats. But if you think that Ferrari's special relationship with FOM and the FIA did not influence Sunday's decision, I have a bridge to sell you.

Ferrari is the only team to have signed the extension of the Concorde Agreement. And Fiat-Ferrari are not part of the manufacturer's break-away group. They have great influence in the sport and lately they are standing in line with FIA and FOM. I am sure that if Ferrari was on Michelin tires, a way would have been found to run the race with a full field.

uwsc11

I have been watching F1 for a long, long time and what happened at Indy was a first for me. Here are a few points I want to add:

1.) This was in no way Ferrari's fault. 9 teams agreed to the chicane. 1 team withheld a vote, but did not vote "no".

2.) Michelin knew what Indy demanded and could have brought the right equipment. They chose to gamble and they lost. Big time!

3.) If the situation would have been reversed the Michelin teams would have happily raced and nobody would have cared the least bit about Ferrari not being there.

4.) People seem to be against Ferrari because they have been very successful in the past few years. Well, maybe the other teams should try harder, instead of bitching and complaining.

5.) Michelin knew about the problems with their tires since the 2nd practise session on Fr. They instructed all teams to increase tire pressure, since it looked like the tires can't handle the course. They could have approached the FIA at that point and start negotiating. But no, they waited until the very last minute where there wasn't enough time left to find a compromise.

6.) I feel most sad for the F1 fans that traveled to the race and spend their vacation time and hard earned cash to see a good show and got robbed of that. A good compromise for a race could have been to guarantee the Bridgestone drivers the first 6 places in the race, in order of them finishing the race. The Michelin drivers could have raced for points paying places 7 and 8. They could have put up a chicane in turn 13 and everybody could have gone racing. Had Alsonso won the race in front of Schumi, he would have gotten 7th place and Schumi would have gotten 1st.

7.) R.I.P. F1 in the US of A.

swajames

I think you make some very valid points but it has become increasingly clear that F1 and the agreements and commercial deals that effectively govern the sport are biased in favor of Ferrari. That said, from my point of view, the real villains in the whole debacle are the FIA and FOM, not Michelin. No doubt who the victims were - the fans who showed up as you rightly point out. This was all about posturing and politics and Ecclestone and his cohorts at the FIA have, more than in any other sport, created a culture where you have only won when you have screwed someone else. As I said in an earlier post if any "good" can possibly come from this it will be in the acceleration of the successor to F1 where the manufacturers and teams take the lead and do a better job in allocating revenues to the participating teams - with less bias to one as is believed to be the basis of much of the disagreement about the current Concord Agreement.

swajames

An interesting article from Paul Stoddart, Minardi team principal (and a Bridgestone team), regarding the events that led to Sunday's mess.

http://www.planet-f1.com/features/race_fea...ory_20035.shtml

Mark-Yorkshire

FIA had no choice but to take the stance they did i.e. no chicane at turn 13.
Both tyre manufacturers are allowed to bring to any race 2 tyre compositions: a competitive tyre and a safer ( albeit maybe less competitive tyre ). Michelin only took the competitive compound and therefore are wholly to blame for the resulting 6 car race.
I have been watching F1 since mid 70's and as an ardent fan actually quite enjoyed the politics enfolding pre race ( might not have been too keen if I had actually been at Indi !!!!!) . It is not reasonable and not within the rules to demand a change of track layout just because someone f***s up. I don't recall Michelin offering some sort of change early in the season when Bridgestone were not competitive on hot tracks.
If Michelin teams were concerned about safety they should have set up their cars to take turn 13 at an appropriate speed. Also why was Ron Dennis not concerned about safety when he allowed Raikonen to have a catastrophic suspension failure recently when it was obvious that his trye was shot to pieces following flat spotting.
I hope FIA severely penalise Michelin at the forthcoming hearing.
Just a shame this did not happen to the French or Monaco Grand Prix instead of USA.
Mark-Yorkshire

Iceman

Well said!

I agree!