Indianapolis F1 GP debacle

[wellard]

The rules are in place and must be enforced to allow equality and justice as in any sport BUT these tyres where dangerous and could have killed someone, in fact it was amazing that nobody was seriously hurt in the testing. At times like this someone needs to have the common sense to allow the race to be a race . Michelin did not put peoples life in danger to cheat it was just a huge stuff up on there part. My solution would have been to publicly censure Michelin, fine them and start them from the back of the grid ... it was that simple.

The race fans deserve better, a disgrace and pure 'more than my jobs worth' management by the f1 bosses.

And as for the idea of allowing drivers to race with unsafe tyres, does any one remember the court cases in Italy over Ayrton Senna's death? Who would want to face that or have blood on there hands?

[Kynaeus]

Heh, it was pretty funny to watch the people in the stands booing. Man, if I paid that much for a ticket to a race and something like that happened I would be teaching everyone around a whole slew of new words

And I'd like to know what you guys find so endearing about these races, all they do is drive around the same oval for a few hours =\

[Bungleau]

I'll accept the additional education I've picked up in this thread. It's obviously more involved than I know, and I'll retract my earlier thoughts for the most part.

However, I will agree that by not serving the fans well, they've done themselves the most damage. Everything else aside, they're in the entertainment business, and need to entertain...

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by wellard: The rules are in place and must be enforced to allow equality and justice as in any sport BUT these tyres where dangerous and could have killed someone, in fact it was amazing that nobody was seriously hurt in the testing. At times like this someone needs to have the common sense to allow the race to be a race . Michelin did not put peoples life in danger to cheat it was just a huge stuff up on there part. My solution would have been to publicly censure Michelin, fine them and start them from the back of the grid ... it was that simple.

Davros, the problem is, Michelin and the Michelin teams weren't prepared to just be fined and made to start from the back of the grid. If you recall it was them who were insisting that a chicane was the ONLY solution - they weren't prepared to race unless that were the case.

Ultimately responsibility for the fiasco has to be attributed to Michelin. They provided a product which was unsatisfactory for the purpose which it was designed for - basically they produced a tyre that couldn't hack it, and had no contingency plan and no backup tyre. It was a monumental stuffup which will cost people millions, put people's lives at risk and heads will roll in the Michelin organisation in the future. Ultimately they are accountable for the problem, because if they had made tyres that actually worked, then the problem would not exist in the first place.

That said, Michelin did the right thing in then advising its teams not to race. Safety has to be paramount in a sport which has a very small margin for error, and had they not given their teams the advice they did then they could well have been culpable for manslaughter if someone died during the race. But this still doesn't excuse the fact that they stuffed up in the first place.

Now the Minardi teams. They are entitled to be pissed off and to feel hard-done by, as their supplier basically let them down and gave them a crap product. They'd be thinking: "why should we suffer? We didn't make the bloody tyre!". They stood by their supplier in a show of solidarity but behind the scenes they should be looking at taking some kind of action, whether that be meetings with the Michelin heads to guarantee that this bollocks never happens again or some other recourse, as they are entitled to sue for damages due to defective product leading to financial loss (though I doubt they will, you never know).

They tried to level the playing field somewhat by supporting the temporary chicane idea, but realistically they can't complain that Ferrari was being a hardarse as there is no valid reason for Ferrari to penalise themselves for a stuffup that had nothing to do with them. At most they could blame Ferrari for "not being a team player" and acting in its own self-interest - but you'll find the Michelin teams were also acting in their own self-interest, by insisting a chicane be built rather than manually regulating their speed at the corner in question or pitting every 10 laps. People can argue that manually slowing cars down is a hazard, and that's fair enough, but putting in a chicane the day of the race without it being tested for effectiveness is also a hazard. These guys do qualifying for a reason - so that they know how to drive the circuit.

They also accused Ferrari (or Stoddart did, he seems to be doing most of the talking for some reason) of being inflexible but they themselves were only able to see one solution to the issue - it was chicane or nothing. Other solutions which would've allowed everyone to race WAS available, but self-interest on the part of the Michelin teams prevented this solution from being implemented, and I reckon it was decided that a "statement" should be made to FIA by boycotting the race. So in this respect the Michelin teams, although not primarily responsible, exacerbated the situation and made it far worse than it had to be. And that talk of racing a non-FIA race and manually putting in the chicane themselves (excluding Ferrari, who coincidentally weren't even officially asked about the chicane, according to them) is complete and utter bollocks and is just petty political pointscoring.

Now FIA. You can argue that FIA were being hardarses and being inflexible. But in this specific case they had to enforce the rules to make sure that the integrity of the race as a sporting contest was maintained. Basically Michelin stuffed up and wanted the FIA to subsidise its stuffup. I can't see any way that they could have done this (agree to the chicane, etc) without jeopardising the integrity of the race. The FIA provided a solution which would have allowed the race to continue yet held Michelin (and by proxy the Michelin teams) accountable for the stuffup, but they didn't want to accept this.

Where I think FIA have to take some accountability is in helping to create this environment of zero trust, zero accountability and zero collaboration, over the last few years. This sport is in an absolute mess with stakeholders pulling in all directions and all governed by pure self-interest. They haven't engendered an atmosphere of trust and cooperation over the years, which is why it was impossible to then find a solution at Indy. Mosley (and Ecclestone) have run this sport like their own personal empire for years and I think their time's now up - there is an irrevocable breakdown of trust between the governing body and the stakeholders which has reached crisis point.

What about Ferrari? Are they to blame for being intransigent and refusing to support their fellow teams in distress? Yes, and probably with good reason. Did they contribute to the failure to reach a consensus? Yes. But being pragmatic, there is absolutely no reason for Ferrari to have to suffer a penalty because someone else stuffed up, particularly as they had nothing to do with the tyre issue in the first place. It sounds mean, but think about it. Why should they take responsibility for someone else's mistake? If you look at it that way it doesn't sound fair that they should, eh. Successful teamwork and building a consensus is all about making things a win-win scenario for everyone. The chicane idea was a win for Michelin and the Michelin teams but not for Ferrari, Minardi and Jordan. Michelin and Co didn't offer enough to make the scenario a win-win for Ferrari et al - perhaps rather than just offering Ferrari the top two positions on the grid they should have worked out how much slower Ferrari would have to go each lap with that chicane in there, multiplied that by the total number of laps and then given Ferrari that much of a head start. That would at least be fairer and might have even gotten Ferrari to listen and make them more prepared to compromise. In any case, Ferrari are saying they were never officially asked about a chicane, though they say they'd have said no anyway.

But no, Michelin (who tried to shift the blame for the issue to FIA and also indirectly to their teams - note that it's the teams who had to make the tough decisions to pull out of the race) and the Michelin teams got a bit too greedy and tried to gain an unfair advantage that they didn't deserve, given the circumstances. And they tried to use the situation to make a political statement to FIA and Ferrari, who in turn ended up screwing them even more.

In doing that, the people who ultimately got screwed are the 200,000 people who turned up at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Screwed by the whole bloody lot of them, the F1 circus, who in trying to grab a bigger piece of the pie, collectively did not create an environment of collaboration and ended up ripping the entire pie to shreds with their petty politics and excessive self-interest.

This sport is RULED and run according to people's self-interest and personal agendas - nobody has the bigger picture of the sport as a whole. To give you an idea on the agendas at work, Paul Stoddart - who's been calling on Mosley to resign for the past year or so, has ambitions to be the next FIA president in October. And the nine teams who wanted the chicane and later wanted to run their own, non-FIA race to "give the public a race" are the same teams who have been talking for the past few months about splitting off from F1 in 2008 and forming their own championship, the GPWC. Why are they doing this? Because FIA, and Mosley and Ecclestone, have been increasingly autocratic and unwilling to listen or collaborate with the manufacturers, except for Ferrari. And Ferrari? They were going to get points out of this week no matter what.

But guess what? 200,000 lawsuits is a hell of a lot of lawsuits. And this happened in the most litigious country in the world as well. And when they're finished, the Indy Motor Speedway, the TV companies, sponsors, betting agencies, and other people who suffered financial loss will be lining up as well. This sport has been out of balance for a long time. Maybe this is the catastrophe, the "correction", the stock market crash that it needs to cut out the cancers and start again.

DISCLAIMER: I don't follow F1 all that closely these days and don't have an affiliation or a following of any one team, though I do keep an eye on Mark Webber when I watch it.

[ 06-23-2005, 07:44 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

[mad=dog]

First of all Bridgestone got a little wind here. But once the dust settles the quistion will arise: "Have Brigdestone purposely let their teams drive on questionable tires?" And frankly the answer is most likely yes. Reviewing the season so far there have been numerous faults (including qualifier faults) that can only be attributed to inferior tires. Start counting the number of times Ferrari cars have retired with a flat.
So really we must review the incident a little more carefully. Is it in order to drive on inferior tires? Should the manifacturer report if there are chances of failure? Any action against Michelin is likely to have adverse effects and discourage reporting failures. As furious as I am over the Indianapolis farce I am also quite reluctant to give way on security issues.
It was in Ferraris interest that things went as it did. Of course they would insist on this outcome from a short term agenda. However I am sure they too have p*ssed off sponsors in the phone at the moment. Not many watched their glorious victory.
However was it really in the FIA managements interest? After all they are responsible for the sport as a whole. Why select the outcome they did? Conditions gave Ferrari an advantage that cannot be justified in results or qualification for that matter. Why couldn't other conditions take that away?
There are many regulations in the ruleset that could cover this incident. This gives space for interpretation. They chose to make the ruling they did, but you cannot claim that it was the only conclusion they could reach.

EDIT:
Since it is obvious that judgement can be clouded by self-interest I think it is in order to reveal that I am a long time Jaguar supporter and have switched to RBR when they stopped.

[ 06-22-2005, 06:01 PM: Message edited by: mad=dog ]

[wellard]

Introducing a chicane was not a real option, without proper testing and practice the organisers would leave themselves open to lawsuits if anyone got injured.

AFAIK there WAS an option open that would have been the fairest thing to do in the time frame namely to bring in replacement tyres. This is the option that should have been followed and allowed under the conditions I mentioned earlier

*...My solution would have been to publicly censure Michelin, fine them and start the Michelin clad teams from the back of the grid ...*

If any of the teams complained about starting from the back of the grid then they should take that problem up with Michelin at least they would have had a race and a chance of some success. Allowing Michelin to dictate terms is like the tail wagging the dog!

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by wellard: AFAIK there WAS an option open that would have been the fairest thing to do in the time frame namely to bring in replacement tyres. This is the option that should have been followed and allowed under the conditions I mentioned earlier

This option was also open - FIA said this was possible but would attract a penalty (but didn't specify what). I think Michelin was not in favour of this because they didn't have the amount of tyres available to re-shod all 14 teams within the time frame.

[Hayashi]

The Bridgestone teams had the advantage of inside information as Firestone (I understand the 2 are connected) passed on info to Bridgestone about the recent resurfacing of the Indy track - & that some new surface (more abrasive) had been laid down.
Michelin otoh, had only last year's data to go on. So during qualifying Michelin's tyres failed becuase of the new surface.

You'd expect them to bring the correct tyres to a race where they'd raced before wouldn't you?

[Memnoch]

Not a good enough excuse IMO. It's bad luck but you expect a company to have a contingency plan, like bring backup tyres. They tried to cut too fine a line and stuffed up.

[mad=dog]

Well as I recall they did ask if they could bring in the Magny-Cours tires after the Schumacher incident. A "just start to bring them in while we arbitrate" message from the FIA management would have been nice.
However that would have placed the FIA management in a problematic situation as they were then more or less obliged to follow up with a permission to change tires. After all teams are allowed to change defect tires during race. I think the management made a calculated risk and hoped the Michelin teams would have run on half throttle. Of course that would most likely still have made the fans P/O'ed as there would have been no race in reality - it is a sport where fractions of a second counts.

Lets look forward. I hope all this depressing talk about boycotts and/or bans is nothing but political aftermath as each side is busy washing their hands. Lets have a really good race on Sunday shall we. It has been a splendid season so far (apart from Indy of course) so I'm looking forward to seeing it decided on the tarmac.

PS:
Refresh my memory. When I briefed myself on the new tire rules I understood that a team is only allowed to bring tires of one quality to each venue as well as wet tires. Furthermore they are only allowed to actually change the tires if there is a serious defect. After Raikkonens front suspension breakdown it was clarified that flatspotting did count as a serious defect.

PPS:
Does anyone else see the irony in BMW taking over the Sauber team?