A full race review will come later. But I have to talk about the stewards’ investigation because it is so pressing.

I was hoping — as was everyone else who loves sport — that the World Championship would be decided on the track. I was hoping that there would be no irregularities found after the race. After the year Formula 1 has had, to have the World Champion decided in a private room between three men was the last thing we needed.

Unfortunately, the nature of the sport means that it is not always that way. Sometimes the scrutineers find something on the cars that causes a result to be changed after the fans have left the circuit. It happens a few times a year. This is a regrettable reality of Formula 1, but it is the reality. It was just unfortunate that it had to happen on this of all days.

Once it was announced that the Williams and BMW cars were being investigated for fuel irregularities, it was clear to me that the FIA were stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they disqualified the four drivers, they would be accused of handing the Championship to Hamilton. If they didn’t (as they haven’t), then they would have been accused of stealing the Championship from Hamilton.

Surprise, surprise, now that the decision — that the drivers will not be disqualified — has been confirmed, sure enough I can hear Stephen Nolan on BBC Radio 5 Live doing his nut about it (luckily David Croft is rather more balanced). There is no doubt in my mind that the reaction from some other people would have been equally angry had the decision gone the other way.

Earlier on this evening I was listening to the 606 phone-in, and everyone seemed to have a different conspiracy theory about the race. Depending on who you listen to, the FIA are pro-Ferrari, pro-Hamilton, anti-Hamilton, anti-McLaren. McLaren are pro-Alonso, anti-Alonso, anti-Hamilton, pro-Hamilton.

It is a sign of the bad management at the FIA that this could happen. Here we were in a situation where the stewards’ decision, whichever way it went, would have been criticised. And whenever anything slightly abnormal happens there is somebody out there ready with a conspiracy theory about it.

Murray Walker always used to say, “Anything can happen in Formula 1 — and it usually does.” Today it would be better to say, “Anything can happen in Formula 1 — and when it does, point the finger at the FIA.”

This has come about because Max Mosley has politicised the sport to a poisonous degree. The FIA has created far too many ridiculous rules, making the sport more convoluted than it should be. And Max Mosley does business on the basis of personal grudges rather than what is good for the sport.

It is sad — but understandable — that people can not have confidence in the decisions made by the FIA. It is yet another sign for me that the sooner Max Mosley is removed from his post as President of the FIA the better.

I have really had enough. Formula 1 is being ruined by a ridiculously Byzantine rule book, political in-fighting, inconsistent penalty decisions, nonsensical posturing and the power-crazy FIA President responsible for it all.

It seems to me as though the FIA is increasingly determined to stick its nose in everything, constantly bossing the teams and bosses around for no good reason, and ruining the sporting spectacle for the fans at home. All too often the race result is changed hours after the chequered flag is waved. And with the multitude of almost-random grid penalties being handed out race-in race-out they really might as well draw lots to determine the grid order.

There is no need for McLaren to be given a special scrutineer to ensure that Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are given equal treatment throughout the weekend. Even Fernando Alonso — whose complaints set off the chain of events that led to McLaren getting the extra scrutineer — says that it is completely unnecessary.

There is surely no-one who seriously considers that McLaren would do anything but offer their drivers complete equality — as far as they possibly can — this weekend. For a start, if anything goes wrong with Alonso’s car, there will be no shortage of people ready to suspect the worst and waiting to throw stones at Ron Dennis for it.

But even if McLaren were to ditch their long-standing (and contractually-binding) policy of equality between their two drivers, what business is it of the FIA’s? None whatsoever. McLaren are a private team, and they should be allowed to run their team in whatever way they see fit. Of course, Max Mosley sees it differently.

How interesting, though, that the FIA turned a blind eye to Ferrari’s policy of explicitly favouring one driver over another during the years that Michael Schumacher drove for them. Not only was this Ferrari’s well-known policy, but Ferrari were proud of it. Many today see it as the model by which all modern F1 teams should be run. If the FIA are so worried about equality, why are they not intervene when Michael Schumacher was competing for any of the five World Championships that he won for Ferrari, or for Ferrari’s own six Constructors’ Championships?

As if that wasn’t bad enough, on Friday at Interlagos came news that three drivers had broken a rule that nobody had heard of. Why on earth is there a rule concerning the number of sets of wet tyres a team can use during a practice session?

Quick, fire up the FIA Random Penalty Generator. Because we don’t know where Takuma Sato, Jenson Button or Lewis Hamilton will be on the grid. That’s right, Lewis Hamilton. Given all the criticism the FIA have faced this season, you would think they would be sensible enough to keep their grubby mitts off the championship battle and let the drivers decide the outcome on the track, the way sport should be.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am not the biggest fan of Lewis Hamilton. But I must sympathise with him and the McLaren team here. Of course, it is fair enough if Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren team have broken a rule. To be frank, it baffles me why Lewis Hamilton needed two sets of tyres when he only did a dozen or so laps. And McLaren (and Honda and Super Aguri) should not be in the sort of situation where they find themselves not knowing the rules.

But this is quite a silly rule that I can’t understand the point of. This probably comes under the FIA’s catch-all “cost cutting” heading, the excuse they give for introducing all of their silliest rules. It is on days like this when I wonder if Formula 1 would not be better just re-writing the rules from scratch.

A good government needs to learn when to leave things alone and treat people as mature adults who can sort things out for themselves. Of course, most governments rather prefer to grab as much power as they can, and the FIA is no different.

The FIA (that’s short for Ferrari International Aid, in the words of Max Mosley himself!!) yesterday released transcripts of the World Motor Sport Council meeting where McLaren were fined one hundered meellion beellion treelion dollars about £15m.

The FIA promised that an confidential information would be removed from the documents before being published. Well, they certainly blacked them out. But simply copying and pasting the black areas revealed all! F1Fanatic has the story.

It is utter incompetence. Essentially, to remove the secret information, the FIA used a similar technique that internet users use to hide “spoiler text” when discussing films and the like. Highlight the text below, as they say.

Max Mosley would be hilarious if he wasn’t so pathetic!

So now all of Ferrari’s super secret information has been leaked for all to see. Not only this, but other sensitive information — such as Mike Coughlan’s salary at McLaren — has also been revealed. Who needs any rogue Nigel Stepney-style figure when you can get the FIA to do all the work for you?

The FIA have since fixed their documents, but of course it is too late. The originals are all over the internet now. On websites like major Dutch broadcaster RTL.

Do I envisage Max Mosley being fined $100m dollars for bringing the sport into disrepute because of this? Not a chance — even though he deserves it more than anyone else!

What was that you say? A double-rear master cylinder with spring? Very interesting!…

This year’s Japanese Grand Prix left be absolutely floored. To think how boring this season started off being. Fernando Alonso totally dominated the first half of the season. Up until Canada (round 9) Alonso had finished either first or second in every single race, including a run of four back-to-back victories. His championship lead was 25 points, and it looked as though it was in the bag.

And then it all came crashing down. The resurgent Ferrari took advantage of Renault’s various mishaps. Infact, until today Alonso hadn’t won a race since Canada. It’s incredible how much this season has turned around. This morning all of the momentum was with Ferrari. That 25 point gap had been whittled down to zero, and Michael Schumacher had won more races than Alonso.

One (admittedly unlikely) possibility was for Schumacher to have actually won the championship today. To do that he needed to win the race and he needed Alonso to retire. But the reverse happened: Michael Schumacher — in the lead, with just 17 laps to go — retired with an engine failure. Alonso went on to win the race.

It’s so unusual. Ferrari’s reliability is usually bullet proof. But today we saw Michael Schumacher’s first engine failure in five years. What a time to have it! And it was truly unbelievable to watch. How many insects flew into my mouth while my jaw was on the floor?

It is difficult to express just how unpredictable the back end of this season has been. At the last race in China it looked as though Renault had it sewn up, but Schumacher was able to drive a fantastic race against all the odds. Today it looked as though Ferrari had all of the momentum — and they did, but only until Schumi’s engine expired.

With just one race to go, it effectively puts the World Championship out of Michael Schumacher’s reach. He can still win the championship, but only if there is another spectacular reversal and Schumacher wins in Brazil while Alonso fails to score. Schumacher has already effectively conceded defeat saying that he doesn’t want to go to Brazil effectively pinning his hopes on an Alonso retirement. But given the way this championship has turned out, it might not be such an unlikely situation!

Unfortunately, not an awful lot else happened during the race. Christijan Albers had one of the scariest car failures I’ve ever seen. And there were a few driver errors — notably from Liuzzi, Speed, Webber and Kubica — but that is to be expected on a circuit as challenging as Suzuka. It’s the last time, for the moment at least, that F1 will be paying a visit to one of the greatest circuits in the world. What an absolute scandal. Somebody needs to give Bernie and Max a clue.

Well the Grand Prix itself has been overshadowed by the announcement that Michael Schumacher is going to retire from motor racing at the end of this season. As expected, Kimi Räikkönen and Felipe Massa have been announced as Ferrari’s drivers for next season.

It was a good time for Schumacher to announce his retirement, having just won at Ferrari’s home Grand Prix at the historic Monza circuit. He probably wants to retire “in his prime”, but I always hate it when people do that. Schumacher has a good chance of winning this year’s World Championship, and the Ferrari is going to be a strong car for the next couple of years (with the Bridgestone advantage). Still, there’ll be plenty of time to reflect on Schumacher’s retirement later.

On to the Grand Prix itself, and yet another nail in F1’s coffin was struck by Max Mosley and the FIA yesterday. It is getting more and more shameless by the race. It really is difficult to say now that the FIA’s prime concern is for Ferrari, not Formula 1. Fernando Alonso had his three fastest times in qualifying taken away for “blocking” Massa. YouTube has the evidence: here is the lap in question.

Did you see any blocking happen? I didn’t, Martin Brundle didn’t, nobody did. The only people who saw it were the race stewards, FIArrari and Max Mosley. It is an utter disgrace. Mosley is turning F1 into a complete laughing stock.

The fact is that Massa made an error in the Parabolica — a remarkably similar error to the one Schumacher made in qualifying at the same corner last year. Drivers are human, and they will make mistakes — and Massa’s incident at the Parabolica was one of them. Why does Mosley think that it must have been caused by Alonso, who was 100 metres ahead of Massa?! Absolutely crazy.

The FIA are tying themselves in knots with their attempts to constantly re-write and re-interpret the rules in favour of Ferrari. If any team makes a technical innovation it gets banned — unless Ferrari happened to be the innovators.

If Michael Schumacher cuts a chicane it goes unpunished and the rules are re-interpreted to allow him to get away with it. With this new interpretation of the rules, Alonso appeared to get away with cutting across a chicane today — so presumably cutting a chicane is now one hundred percent legal. Nice work FIA!

One of the most notable aspects of the actual race was the stunning pace of Robert Kubica. Very impressive. This is only Kubica’s third race, yet a lightning start ensured that he was right up with the front runners. The BMW was clearly an extremely strong car at Monza this year, but Heidfeld dropped an anchor on the first lap while Kubica sped away. He led for six laps and earned himself a fully deserved podium finish. Okay, so he was helped by the retirement of Alonso, but at that point Alonso had only just passed Kubica.

Alonso’s retirement will also be pivotal for the World Championship. The reliability of Renault had been bullet proof up until today when the engine blew up. This is important because it is a new engine, and teams will have to use the same engine for three years from now on. Honda rushed out their new engine, only for it to fail twice very quickly. So we’ll probably be seeing a lot of engine failures next year. Of course, it will be the same engines all the time, ensuring that we get the same result every single race — for three years. Another genius idea from Max Mosley!

So the FIA seems to have got its way in terms of the controversial ‘engine freeze’ proposal.

For those of you who don’t follow the politics of F1 too closely (and I don’t blame you), the FIA want to ban engine development. Teams will have to use the same engines race after race — not for a few races or a full season, but for years, probably until at least 2009.

This is a completely batshit proposal, even by Max Mosley’s standards. Essentially this means that the winner of every World Championship for the forseable future will be a Ferrari or Renault driver. Unsurprisingly, the teams that were most in favour of the engine freeze proposal were Ferrari (and Ferrari arse-lickers Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Midland) and Renault.

How much notice have the engine manufacturers got to make the only engines they’ll be able to use for years to come? Less than two months. The engine freeze will come into effect before the end of this season. What on earth is happening to the sport?

Given that one of F1’s biggest selling points is its image of being at the forefront of technology, the FIA, worryingly, appears to be becoming opposed to any actual innovation. Any teams that try to do something different are told to stop doing it. Look at how BMW were forced to remove their innovative fins, and how Renault have been scared into removing their mass damper system.

In future it seems as though aspiring F1 teams will be able to buy other teams’ chassis on the cheap. What is this? Formula 1 or Scrapheap Challenge?

A common jibe about F1 is that the cars all look the same. But it seems as though the FIA won’t be happy until the cars actually are all the same.

Michael Schumacher — not brave enough to let anybody else get a lap in.

And of course, because it’s Ferrari, the authorities will turn a blind eye.

Update: “Schumacher takes ignominious pole.”

Schumacher Takes Controversial Monaco Pole:

Schumacher has been guilty of these sort of tactics in the past, and his demeanour in the press conference was a little shakey. Michael didn’t appear to be as confident as normal and made a couple of slip-ups as he gave his account of the qualifying session.

Steve Rider and Mark Blundell on ITV’s coverage described Schumacher’s press conference performance as “sheepish”.

Update: GrandPrix.com’s qualifying report:

There is a restaurant in old Monaco called Pinocchio’s and one can only wonder if Michael Schumacher will be dining there on Saturday evening as there were more than a few people in the Formula 1 paddock who think that Michael’s pole was growing on his face.

Haha! Also, there is this news report:

Within minutes of the end of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix, there were rumblings in the paddock that a number of the F1 drivers are so unahppy about what happened to Michael Schumacher that the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association is going to demand Schumacher’s resignation from the board of directors of the organisation because they consider his manoeuvre at Rascasse to have been unsporting and detrimental to the image of the sport.

Update again: Short-sighted Sid compares Michael Schumacher to a true Ferrari great, Gilles Villeneuve, with video evidence to prove it.

Update: News of penalties are coming in now. Fisichella’s been moved back three places. He was deemed to have held up David Coulthard. Now what about Schumacher?…

Update 21:13: None of the other drivers are happy at all.

Meanwhile, the stewards have yet to make a decision. In a sense you can understand this. Whichever way they decide to judge it, the decision will have big repercussions. We probably won’t be hearing the end of this for a while.

Update: Radio Five Live is reporting that Schumacher has been sent to the back of the grid.

So it’s an all-Ferrari back row! Alonso’s on pole, Webber will start in second, and Räikkönen third. What a fantastic position for Webber to be in.

And if any of you haven’t seen the incident yet, here is a video of it on YouTube (via F1Fanatic).

Update: Confusingly, GrandPrix.com have a story headlined, Schumacher dumped to the back of the grid, but report that he will actually start 8^th.

I’m posting this in every single category to make sure everybody who might need this gets it.

I’ve decided that my categories are a mess, and tomorrow I’m going to attempt to clean them up a bit. I’ll be creating new categories, deleting rubbish old ones, and changing where they go. Some posts might end up in different places. Just a heads up, because it does mean that some feed URLs, and indeed website URLs, will change.

Well, it seems to happen at least once a year, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to learn that Patrick Friesacher is struggling to find the money to keep him in that Minardi car. Possibly the least impressive driver of the year; Minardi probably won’t be too unhappy to see him go. Robert Doornbos seems to be the most likely replacement to me. But hands up who’s ever heard of Can Artam, because I haven’t. He’s languishing in 17^th place in the GP2 series…

Elsewhere in F1-land, would David Richards really buy Jordan? It seems to be received wisdom that Alex Shnaider is already bored with Formula 1 (or didn’t realise how expensive it would be). But I found the Eddie Irvine thing more likely.

Today’s F1 Racing magazine landed on the doormat today and it has a massive piece on what has become known as ‘Indygate’. I quote some of it below.

Click for more »

Okay, so now apparently the Michelin teams aren’t guilty of anything.

“New evidence” has come up pointing out that the teams were obliged to follow Michelin’s safety advice, and therefore were not at fault. Except everybody knew that all the time, so goodness knows what the FIA are up to.

I’ve given up trying to understand the FIA. I suppose we should just be thankful that this is all over and that the sport can now (hopefully) move on.

Update: The official Formula 1 website is asking for people’s views on two particular proposals for qualifying systems for 2006. I voted for proposal two, although the smaller teams may not be too happy with that as it will not guarantee them television time.

Another disappointing race, but there were more incidents than there were in France.

The McLarens looked superb once again. Juan Pablo Montoya’s start was fantastic, and that’s probably what sealed the win for him, as well as just managing to snatch the lead after Alonso’s first pit stop.

There’s not much else to say, except to say that for the second time in a row we’ve been robbed of a fantastic race thanks to a combination of a major chink in McLaren’s armour and this year’s engine rules. For the second race running there can be no doubt that Kimi Räikkönen was the best driver, but because he was forced to start ten places on the grid back he was only able to finish third.

Räikkönen and Alonso are the best drivers in the field at the moment; the major contenders for the Drivers’ Championship. Yet we’ve not yet properly seen them wheel-to-wheel yet. It’s the wheel-to-wheel battles that go down in history, not the long-term spreadsheet that is the Drivers’ Championship standings. And if McLaren keep on having as many reliability problems, they are going to say goodbye to Räikkönen’s already pretty slim-looking championship hopes. Still McLaren look like they have the momentum — but it’s looked that way for months, and somehow Renault and Alonso still seem to manage to get the better of McLaren and Räikkönen.

Räikkönen also spent a good chunk of the race being held up by Michael Schumacher. Commentators are now saying that it’s about the new aerodynamics regulations. There’s something that makes me a bit reluctant to place the blame on the new aerodynamics. There was enough overtaking at the start of the season. I remember Pedro de la Rosa seemed to get quite a lot done at Bahrain. And there were a couple of decent overtaking manoeuvres today — the best being Jacques Villeneuve on David Coulthard, unfortunately only for something like 14^th position.

Jarno Trulli still manages to stun people by being unbelievably slow during races compared with his qualifying performances.

Another notable thing about today’s grand prix is the incredible reliability. Takuma Sato and Giancarlo Fisichella had electronic glitches, yes, but they finished the race. There was only one retirement. Tiago Monteiro therefore continues his fantastic record-breaking run — he has finished all of his first eleven races. Incredible!

What was that Max?

Eight teams were ready to leave Formula 1 to set up GPWC two years ahead of schedule.

Max Mosley: Have problems with the FIA? Well don’t tell me about it then.

Red Bull sign Coulthard for 2006.

Update: Now the drivers are against Mosley aswell.

Update: Mark Webber gets a potty mouth because he’s so angry with the FIA.

Paul Stoddart is still angry aswell:

The teams have had a gutful of Max. Either he goes or F1 as we know it today will go.

Update: Red Bull joins the other Michelin teams in appealing.

Update: Secrets.

Edouard Michelin, the Michelin (boss) man, has written an angry letter to Max Mosley.

Over the last days, you have repeatedly blamed us in the press, directly or indirectly. Will you at least recognize publicly that we have taken a courageous, honest and transparent stance for the safety of the pilots? I hope you will be fair enough to acknowledge that Michelin, with its seven partner teams, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Formula One Management and two other teams, did the maximum to preserve a true and safe race by proposing a very serious and pragmatic alternative. This is all the opposite of a boycott!

Yet more evidence that FIArrari was the sole stumbling block at Indianapolis on Sunday. Mosley is the one who stopped the race from going ahead.

Update: Michelin to refund Indy spectators.

We would also like to take this opportunity to underline the fact that it is unacceptable that our partner teams have been accused by the FIA of having boycotted the Indianapolis Grand Prix. The reality is that together, Michelin and its partners have done everything possible to assure that the race could take place in total safety.

We are extremely disappointed that the proposals made with all our teams were not accepted. These proposals, including a chicane, were technically viable and totally met all safety requirements. On Sunday morning, June 19, the sporting authority had all the means necessary to preserve the interest of the race.

And yet, the sporting authority rejected the proposed solutions. Why? In our view this is totally incomprehensible and reflects a lack of respect for the spectators.

It is the spirit of respect for the spectators that brought us, with our partners, to propose solutions to allow the race to take place in total safety. It is this same spirit that leads us today to make this gesture.

The problem with Max Mosley:

All the time in this job you’re trying to solve other people’s problems. You sit in an office in Monaco slaving away and you could be on the beach or having a nice lunch. It’s crazy.

Aww, poor Max. He was so busy fucking up the sport that he’s head of that he missed his lunch.

My message to Max is, if you’re so keen on the beach, you’re more than welcome to bugger off on to it, and stay there, away from F1.

How does Max Mosley respond to those who call for him to do the decent thing?

“Stoddart is a sad case,” he said.

“I helped him tremendously when the other teams were trying to steal his money. But now my reaction is that he’s obviously forgotten to take his medication.”

“Mad Max,” as some call Mosley, seems to put more emphasis on the ‘Mad’ part every day.

Brace yourselves Formula 1 fans — the World Council meeting is on Wednesday.

Max Must Go, says I. Jackie Stewart seems to lean that way aswell.

Sir Jackie Stewart has accused Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, of a system breakdown at the US Grand Prix…

Minardi boss Paul Stoddart believes F1 teams could boycott future races if the FIA hands out “draconian bans” to the seven teams at Wednesday’s hearing.

Stewart said: “I think that would be scandalous. I think the sport, if it’s allowed to be dealt with in that fashion, can’t go on with the leadership it has if that is the case.["]

…[Minardi boss Paul] Stoddart, whose team use Bridgestone tyres and did race in the US, has blamed FIA president Max Mosley for the incident and called for his resignation.

Stewart feels that it is definitely an option.

“I think it has to be looked at. I think there’s been so much disruption caused by this event.

“In the normal business sector, where corporate life has a very dim view of that kind of situation being allowed to occur, the management of the whole structure is put into question.

“I think the people at the top are vulnerable.”

GrandPrix.com says:

“It doesn’t particularly bother me,” [Max Mosley] told BBC Radio. “My predecessor, when he had a conflict like this, and I must say I was on the other side with the teams, we used to ask him to resign on an hourly basis. He never took any notice.”

What Mosley forgot to mention was that eventually the FIA membership grew tired of Jean-Marie Balestre and voted him out of office, much to his surprise. There is a danger that the World Council could vote against Mosley. That happened at the equivalent meeting a year ago, over the question of karting. After that defeat Mosley resigned, only to return to office a couple of weeks later when it became clear that the other FIA men were incapable of naming a new leader.

ITV F1 says:

Minardi boss Paul Stoddart has already threatened to lead a boycott of the French GP if Wednesday’s World Council meeting turns the screw on the teams – despite the fact that his own squad, which uses Bridgestone tyres, will not be subject to any penalties.

…[T]he fact that a repeat of the Indy withdrawal can even be contemplated tells you everything you need to know about the rancid atmosphere that is currently poisoning F1 – and about the breakdown of trust between Mosley and the teams that is at the root of the problem.

The Mole’s take.

Update: Michelin reveal all about their tyres.

The tyres were not intrinsically flawed, but were insufficiently suited to the extreme racing conditions encountered through Turn 13 of the Indianapolis circuit this year. Given the evolutions concerning the cars’ aerodynamics, the regulations which govern the sport and the nature of the track surfaces etc, Michelin carries out testing in the course of each season with a view to developing the tyres which are the most suited to each event. Two key elements must be known about the Indianapolis circuit: Turn 13, with its severe banking, is the only turn of its kind in a season of 19 races; Testing at Indianapolis was not possible.

F1 fans have their say part 2. Funny that most of them seem to be calling for Max Mosley to go. I wonder why!…

Update: I couldn’t agree more with this post.

Sorry to go on about Formula 1 again. But if you ever needed an example of just how idiotic the FIA are being, read this:

We hear that the FIA has ordered Michelin to supply it with full details of all of its tyre failures in recent times and that the federation has instructed the French tyre maker that the information will be put in front of an independent technical expert to decide whether or not Michelin’s F1 tyres are dangerous.

You can bet on the FIA having a, shall we say, ‘liberal’ interpretation of the word ‘independent’. The June issue of F1 Racing magazine conducted a straw poll of 100 random people in the paddock. They asked if they thought the FIA Court of Appeal was independent of the FIA. Here’s what the magazine found.

Our sample, chosen at random, included team principals, drivers, engineers, team PR people, team marketing people, journalists, photographers and, yes, FIA officials (all of whom answered ‘yes’, of course); but, overall, 94 out of the 100 answered, “No.”

I don’t think that’s sample error.

Back to the GrandPrix.com article.

We have not seen the letter from FIA President Max Mosley to Michelin but apparently it suggests that the outcome of this could be the exclusion of Michelin from the World Championship, which would leave seven teams with no tyres for future races.

As most of the cars are designed specifically for Michelin tyres this would mean that cars could not be run because of safety issues.

So the FIA’s proposed solution to the PR disaster that occurred on Sunday? For every single other race to be run like that. I simply cannot believe it.

Still think it’s Michelin’s fault?

For a while now, I have wanted to see the end of the tyre war in Formula 1.

When Bridgestone first entered Formula 1, joining Goodyear in 1997, I was quite excited about it. Another variable; can’t be a bad thing, right? And it wasn’t at first. But since Michelin entered the fray Formula 1 has become little more than a glorified tyre championship. Basically, if the Bridgestone is a good tyre Ferrari will run away with it; if the Michelin is better then Ferrari will have a fight on their hands.

Because of this tyre manufacturers have gone to extreme lengths to make their tyres the fastest. Nowadays the majority of major accidents are caused by tyre failures. In the past it was punctures, but this year delamination is the problem. I’m not an expert, but I think that basically means that the tyres are failing not because they’ve run over a piece of debris, but because they’ve been pushed too hard, in conditions that are too hot (and this year’s Formula 1 races have tended to be a few degrees hotter than the norm).

Tyres are pivotal because they seem to fail when the car is at its fastest — see Räikkönen’s massive failure at Nürburgring and Ralf Schumacher’s accident at Indianapolis on Friday. Because of this all attempts ought to be made to make sure that the tyres are as safe as they possibly could be. Instead, tyres appear to be today’s F1 cars’ biggest liabilities. With sturdy tyres today’s Formula 1 cars would be safer and more reliable than they’ve ever been. Instead, the sport seems to get more dangerous by the race.

It’s all compounded by the current rules which state that only one set of tyres can be used over qualifying and the race. It’s supposed to be a cost-cutting measure. But it’s a funny kind of cost-cutting measure that destroys so many expensive cars.

Now the teams have arrived at Indianapolis to find that the Michelin tyres are unsafe for the circuit. The situation in the Saturday practice sessions was farcical, with most Michelin runners avoiding the banked curve by going through the pitlane, therefore never completing a lap. Although McLaren say they’re happy enough. BAR do aswell, although Jenson Button complained about a lack of grip — despite qualifying third. The Renault drivers are happy enough, but their engineers are not. Toyota are definitely not happy — it is, after all, their cars that crashed on Friday — but they weren’t shy of sticking their car on pole today.

Michelin themselves, though, seem adament that those tyres are not suitable for a full race distance, and are trying to fly out a whole new set of tyres. Martin Brundle pointed out in his commentary today that that would break about five different regulations. Cars are not supposed to change tyres between qualifying and the race. And if they were to change the tyres the cars would end up racing on unknown tyres, and the teams will have to take a guess as to how to set up their cars. Not exactly the safest of scenarios either.

The sport’s politicians will be talking it over this evening. But at the moment, we are looking at a situation whereby Michelin-shod teams will threaten to pull out of the race (leaving a thoroughly ridiculous situation whereby only Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi would race — not exactly competitive, is it?) unless they can be allowed to cheat. We might even see a temporary makeshift rule change overnight. The Michelin teams might be sent to the back of the grid or given some other kind of penalty. Who knows? Bernie says he’s 100% certain that there will be twenty cars on the grid tomorrow — but who can tell with Bernie?

Once again, Formula 1 finds itself in a farcical situation in the one place it doesn’t need to — the USA, where the public is still sceptical about Formula 1.

Every week I support the idea of a control tyre more and more. Ditch the tyre war to get rid of all this nonsense. This, along with a return to slicks, has been proposed by the FIA in their suggested regulations for 2008. As this month’s issue of F1 Racing notes, “Gone will be those well-worn excuses of, ‘Our tyre never works well at this circuit.’”

Amongst the FIA’s other proposals for 2008 are to “ditch all the ugly winglets, flips, flaps and bargeboards that clutter up the bodywork… F1 cars will look ‘proper’ once more.” But I like today’s Formula 1 cars. Winglets and flaps and sculpted chassis are what differentiate Formula 1 from pissy series like IndyCars or Formula 3 (not that Jordan seem to have noticed, ho ho!). Plus, sponsors hate them because they twist their logos beyond recognition — I wouldn’t actually be surprised if this propsed rule was more for the sake of sponsors than for the sake of racing.

I can’t say I have a major problem with the other proposals though. There’s been talk of a standardised ECU for ages, in order to get rid of launch control and traction control once and for all. It would be good to finally see it. The idea of standardised brakes and gearboxes seems a bit odd to me though. Why do you need a standard gearbox? I really am flummoxed by that.

Incidentally, I would also scrap the rule whereby an engine has to last for two races. At first the endurance aspect was interesting. But as the season has gone on it’s become clear that it is no longer Formula 1 racing. Endurance is fine, but this isn’t rallying. Now Formula 1 drivers are always having to keep an eye on looking after their tyres and engines instead of pushing to the limit like they should be doing.