doctorvee

A solution should have been found

The 2005 United States Grand Prix will go down as one of the darkest days in the history of Formula 1. With the Michelins suffering unexpected tyre failures, fourteen of the twenty cars due to start were deemed unsafe by the French tyre manufacturers. A solution should have been found. But after a lot of politics over the weekend, the race started with just six cars — those of Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi — and even Minardi were very reluctant to race.

Initial blame fell, quite rightly, on Michelin. It is their tyres that failed, whilst the Bridgestones came prepared for the conditions. But it is to Michelin’s credit that, as soon as they realised they had a problem on Friday evening, they held their hands up and said they had made a mistake. Michelin put safety first, and said in no uncertain terms that the Michelin teams would be unable to race unless there could be a compromise in the rules.

Michelin are to blame for their tyres failing. But it is the FIA who must shoulder the blame for there not being a proper race at Indianapolis. The FIA are to blame on several levels for reasons that I will spell out on this page.

Was it so much Michelin’s fault?

Firstly, though, I will demonstrate why I think it is unfair to blame Michelin so much. Clearly, Michelin made a miscalculation. But, in my view, Michelin were not being callous. It is obviously not in Michelin’s interest to supply defective tyres — just look at all the bad publicity it has caused them. Michelin had five years’ of data to work with, so they certainly should have been able to make the tyre correctly.

So in view of this, let’s look at what changed to make that data invaild. The Indianapolis circuit had been resurfaced. The new surface at Indianapolis is more abrasive. That is part of the reason why Michelin were caught out.

So how come Bridgestone had no such trouble? Because their sister company, Firestone, had an opportunity to test IndyCars on the circuit — an opportunity not open to Michelin. Firestone / Bridgestone had an opportunity to see that the new surface was having adverse affects on tyre wear. Firestone had to abandon their own test there due to safety concerns.

Doesn’t sound like a million miles away from Michelin’s situation, does it? The difference is that Bridgestone has the opportunity to check it out months before the race, whereas Michelin had no preparation.

This is not to absolve Michelin of blame; merely to offer a possible explanation as to why things may not be as simple as Michelin taking the wrong tyre. It’s not as if they’d deliberately take an unsafe tyre, is it?

Michelin are guilty of, at worst, making a miscalculation with their tyres. But the FIA are the ones who must shoulder the blame for the farce that the 2005 United States Grand Prix became.

So why blame the FIA?

So why blame the FIA? Because of the FIA’s ridiculous rules. The FIA set the rules, along with the teams. In this scenario, the FIA should provide leadership. Instead, it is a headless chicken leading the blind. Except the teams have woken up to the fact that the rules need changing — and proper changing, not idiotic tweaking — far sooner than the FIA will.

It is the increasingly ridiculous rules which led to the problems that Michelin had. The ‘tyre war’ has been going on for far too long. Formula 1 has become little more than a glorified tyre championship. When Bridgestone are doing well, Ferrari do well; when Michelin have the upper hand, Ferrari have more of a struggle on their hands. And that is what the championship now boils down to. In the pursuit of speed, both Michelin and Bridgestone (and it is important to stress that Bridgestone have had many tyre failures aswell) have been using increasingly dangerous tyres. In an age when Formula 1 cars are meant to be safer than ever, tyres have become one of a Formula 1 car’s biggest liabilities. And this is caused by rules set by a governing body that claims to put safety first.

In such a situation, the FIA should have been doing everything they could to put a stop to the tyre problems. Instead, for the 2005 season, they decided to have teams running on just two sets of tyres for the whole weekend — and just one set for qualifying and the race. Because it is against the rules to change tyres between qualifying and the race, Michelin wouldn’t have been able to change to safer tyres at Indianapolis even if they could have. Teams are only allowed to change tyres when the old tyres are unsafe (and even then, they can only change to their used sets from the practice sessions). But who judges how unsafe a tyre is in the middle of a race?

It is a massive grey area. As such, teams are reluctant to change tyres for fear of being hit with a penalty. There has been a question mark hanging over the issue of tyres. The tyre war has outstayed its welcome. Even the Ferrari president, Luca di Montezemolo, has said that the Indianpolis fiasco was an “almost inevitable” consequence of the FIA’s ridiculous tyre rules. Teams from Minardi all the way up to Ferrari have called to an end to the tyre war. The FIA have proposed a control tyre for 2008. But that is too late for 2005.

Michelin did the FIA’s job

Once they found out that they had a tyre problem, Michelin did everything in their power to get a race going ahead. The Michelin teams offered several compromises. All they wanted was a chicane to be placed on the problematic Turn 13 to slow the cars down and make the race safe for the Michelin runners. In return, they offered to start the race behind all of the Bridgestone runners and to forfeit any championship points scored. So, in short, Michelin didn’t want to race for FIA World Championship points. They only wanted to race so that they could put on a show for the American spectators.

Max Mosley refused. He claimed that building a chicane would be unfair to the Bridgestone runners, against the rules and ultimately unsafe.

So what did Mosley’s FIA suggest as a compromise? They asked the Michelin teams to run slowly through Turn 13. But this itself is extremely unsafe. You don’t need me to tell you that having cars going at vastly different speeds through a corner is dangerous, not to mention the fact that you can’t expect a racing driver to force his speed down when he doesn’t know how far he can push it. ITV’s commentator James Allen pointed out that this shouldn’t even have been an option.

I understand that at one point it was suggested that the Michelin cars should drive “slowly” around Turn 13, even using pit lane speed limiters.

Considering that the Bridgestone cars would have been doing 190mph, that would surely have been more dangerous than exploding tyres!

If the debate was on that kind of level you can see why a load of vastly experienced men failed to see common sense.

So not only did the FIA ask the Michelin teams to race on tyres which everybody knew were unsafe, they also wanted to make conditions even more dangerous. When Ralf Schumacher crashed at Turn 13 in 2004 he was sidelined for five races. When he crashed in 2005 he wasn’t allowed to race. But what if the accident was bigger? A driver could have been killed. A track marshal, or even a spectator, could have been killed by a piece of flying debris. Instead of acting to sort this situation out, the FIA covered their ears and suggested making the race even more dangerous.

I also fail to see how having different cars driving effectively different races would have been much less farcical than the six-car race which took place.

The FIA also suggested that the Michelin teams should have changed their tyres every 10 laps. But this is against the FIA’s own ridiculous rules, and the teams wouldn’t even have had the supplies to change tyres seven times in a race.

So much for the FIA thinking about safety and the integrity of the rules then!

FIA hypocrisy

Putting the tyres to one side and concentrating on the politics, one must also lay blame at the FIA for failing to accept a solution. In the past, when safety issues have come to light, compromises have been found.

Take the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix for instance. Bridgestone didn’t take the right tyres to cope with the weather conditions. So the race was delayed until the rain eased. When the race started it was run behind the Safety Car for several laps until it was deemed safe to let the race go ahead. By that time the conditions had become perfect for the Bridgestones, and the ultimate result was that Giancarlo Fisichella won on the Bridgestone-shod Jordan, a car which Fisichella himself called “a shitbox.”

At the 1994 Spanish Grand Prix, the Benneton team was having problems with its rear wing. Its cars were declared unsafe to drive. Guess what happened? A chicane was built to slow the cars down.

If the FIA could be flexible when just one team had a problem at Barcelona; if they could be flexible when Bridgestone had problems at Interlagos, why couldn’t the FIA be flexible at Indianapolis?

Want more evidence of Max Mosley’s hypocrisy? How about the letter he wrote to teams just after the 2005 European Grand Prix which said:

If you are in any doubt about your car, you should always call it in. If you are still in doubt after checking the car in the pits, you should retire it from the race.

This is exactly what Michelin did. Michelin followed Mosley’s advice, and Mosley has criticised them for it.

Mosley blocked the race

Everybody was happy to compromise. Michelin’s proposal (outlined above) was by far the most popular. All of the Michelin teams agreed, in addition to Bridgestone runners Minardi and, initially, Jordan. It also had the support of Tony George. Even Bernie Ecclestone is said to have supported it! (Is what Slavica wears a clue? Bernie’s wife, usually seen wearing Ferrari merchandise, wore Renault colours on the grid at Indianapolis.)

So who didn’t support it? Ferrari and the FIA, or FIArrari as I am increasingly calling the clique.

Jean Todt claims he wasn’t asked about the chicane proposal, but I find this just a tad difficult to believe. Everybody around the world saw the pictures of teams’ representatives discussing what they could do about the race. Flavio Briatore was clearly seen arguing with Ferrari representatives. I don’t think they were chatting about the weather.

Michelin’s policy was to put safety first, and to put a show on for the crowds at Indianapolis and the millions of viewers watching the race on television around the world. FIArrari’s policy was to risk lives for the sake of a political game.

Because Mosley refused to budge, the race began with just six cars. Minardi claim that the only reason they raced was because Jordan Midland went out. With Bridgestone forcing Minardi to race (contractual obligations and all that), the team was left in an impossible position. But had Jordan Midland kept to their word, the race could have had just two cars participating — and perhaps at that point Ferrari would have had to have had a good look at themselves. Jordan Midland let Ferrari off the hook.

Max surely knows the saying, “the show must go on.” But he went on a power trip. He thought he could get the Michelin teams to cave in, and show how big, strong and powerful he was. But he failed. Mosley put his political game before the good of Formula 1 and he made every motor racing fan in the world look like an idiot in the process.

The FIA’s kangaroo court

For the June issue of F1 Racing magazine, one hundred random individuals in the paddock, including “team principals, drivers, engineers, team PR people, team marketing people, journalists, photographers and, yes, FIA officials,” were asked if they thought the FIA’s Court of Appeal was independent as the governing body claims.

94% said that the FIA Court of Appeal is not independent of the FIA.

Biased towards Ferrari?

It is difficult to believe that the FIA is as biased towards Ferrari as some claim. The theory goes that Ferrari is such an important brand for Formula 1 that it wouldn’t be able to survive without the Scuderia. Therefore the FIA do everything in their power to keep Ferrari on their side. But is this really true? The farce at Indianapolis merely fuel to the conspiracy theorists’ arguments.

There is a catalogue of occasions when the FIA have given Ferrari the benefit of the doubt when confronted with a grey area in the rules.

At the 1998 British Grand Prix, Michael Schumacher was allowed to serve his stop-go penalty after the race had finished. Have you ever seen a McLaren serve a stop-go penalty after the race?

How about the 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix, when Ferrari’s bargeboards were found by the race stewards to be illegally sized? Well, that was until they went to court when the bargeboards were still illegal but “within levels of tolerance”. They got away with it. Did Williams or Toyota get such treatment after the 2004 Canadian Grand Prix?

Usually when a Formula 1 car lands beached in the gravel trap it’s race over. Not for Michael Schumacher? Remember the 2004 European Grand Prix? His car was stuck. The marshalls were allowed to push him out of the gravel trap. Schumacher went on to win the race. If a Renault lands in the gravel trap it gets winched away by a crane.

Ferrari have been responsible for all of Formula 1′s biggest PR disasters in recent years. The 2002 Austrian Grand Prix and the 2002 United States Grand Prix are notable instances when Ferrari made a mockery of the sport. All the FIA did was to half-heartedly introduce a ‘team orders’ rule which they knew couldn’t be enforced. Michelin are being charged with bringing the sport into disrepute for putting safety first.

Put on their own, each of these incidents were explained away at the time. But when you stack them all up, it looks a little bit more difficult to explain. How can Ferrari always get the benefit of the doubt when a grey area crops up?

The FIA have only one team signed up to its Concorde Agreement for after 2007 — Ferrari.

And which team boss has a seat on the FIA’s World Council? Ferrari’s Jean Todt. He’s supposed to be representing the constructors, even though he is consistently in disagreement with his fellow team bosses.

So is the FIA biased towards Ferrari? I wonder sometimes…

But above all…

Bernie Ecclestone is a hate figure for some. But I can’t see much wrong with Bernie. Bernie is responsible for the commerical side of Formula 1. This makes him very influential, but he is not responsible for the actions of the FIA or the rules that they set. Bernie did everything in his power to ensure that the race went ahead successfully — why would he want to do otherwise? The events at Indianapolis show just how things have change, and how Bernie’s influence seems to have been eroded.

As the governing body of the sport, it is the FIA who have overall control of all aspects of Formula 1. It is the FIA who failed to put on a show at Indianapolis. It is the FIA which has left this terrible mess behind.

The choice

The future of Grand Prix racing depends on a choice currently facing Formula 1.

The manufacturers are threatening to break away from Formula 1 after 2007 (the teams are bound by the Concorde Agreement until then). They want to form their own racing series, Grand Prix World Championship. But not all the teams are on board. Ferrari are signed up to Formula 1 until 2012. It looks increasingly likely, also, that Jordan Midland and Red Bull want to join in with Ferrari. On the other side, you’ve got big-name manufacturers like Renault, Toyota and BMW, along with Williams. It also looks like Honda and Minardi increasingly favour GPWC aswell.

Either Max Mosley goes, or the teams go. But Grand Prix motor racing cannot afford to tear itself apart. A twenty-car grid already looks a bit skinny, and a six-car grid would be terrible, as the United States Grand Prix demonstrated.

In my view, this is why Max must go.

My blog posts on this subject

• Updates can be found in the Max Must Go category
• Mosley on tyres
• BMW buy Sauber (goes on to discuss that day’s Indy-related news)
• More FIArrari lunacy
• 2005 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix
• The death of F1 in America
• End the F1 tyre fiasco