Off Wing Opinion

At the 2002 U.S, Grand Prix at Indianapolis, Ferrari spit in the eye of American auto racing fans when uber-driver Michael Schumacher allowed his teammate Reubens Barrichello to pass him on the final straightaway to take the victory. Schumacher's gesture was quid pro quo for an action a few weeks before, when the team had ordered Barrichello to move aside to allow Schumacher to win his hometown Austrian Grand Prix.

Well, if what happened at Indianapolis in 2002 was one maximum loogie, the travesty that was the 2005 U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis was more like a full-on drop kick to the groin.

Via TiVo, I began watching about 45 minutes after Speed Channel began broadcasting what has to be one of the biggest business blunders in sports history. Here's what happened and why.

After a very scary Ralf Schumacher crash in practice last week, French tire manufacturer Michelin determined that the crash was caused by a tire failure that occurred in turn 13. Due to a six degree bank in that turn -- the only bank on the entire F1 circuit -- the vertical G load on the tire rose so high, that the tire actually separated between the edge of the tire and the belt. Here's Josh Katinger from Fast Machines with more:

Michelin supplies all but 3 of the teams that run the F1 circuit with tires. They got their tire compound all wrong this weekend and the tiers were failing in the super high speed corner onto the main straight. Last year Ralf Schumacher broke his back crashing there. This year in practice he crashed again and was not going to participate in the Grand Prix as a result. Long story short it was a potentially life threatening situation for anyone running a Michelin shod car.

Michelin fessed up to this foul up and made no bones about the fact that they screwed up and that something had to be done for the safety of the drivers. They wanted to fly new tires in for all the teams on race day. Of course the F1 rules say you must use the same set of tires for qualifying and the race and cannot change the tires unless they are punctured or going flat. So then they tried to have an additional chicane put in to slow the cars on the super high speed turn and front straight. These requests was denied by the FIA. Max Mosely gave his denials from London where he received an official letter from Michelin stating the severity of the safety situation.

What happened next was one of the more bizzare scenes in all of motor racing history. After a run-up to the race where everyone was wondering whether the 14 cars that drive on Michelin would show up on the starting gird, they actually did.

Whereafter they completed one lap, filed back onto pit road, and headed into the garage, leaving the six cars running on Bridgestone tires, including the two entries from Ferrari, to finish a race that looked more like an F1 testing session. Here's what the Michelin teams had to say folowing the race:

After final data from Michelin became available at 06.30 on Sunday morning it became clear that Michelin were not able to guarantee the safety of the drivers. Numerous discussions and meetings took place to find a safe solution to the problem. Every possibility for the race to go ahead in a safe manner was explored. The only practical solution was for a chicane to be installed prior to Turn 13 and nine of the teams were prepared to run under these conditions even forgoing championship points or by allowing non-Michelin teams to take top positions on the grid.

Unfortunately all proposals were rejected by the FIA.

Safety is always the first concern of any team and the FIA. Regrettably the teams were obliged to follow Michelin's requirements not to race.

You can imagine what the nearly 150,000 race fans in attendance thought of this -- especially as no announcement had been made on the track loudspeakers explaining anything at all about what was happening. But it didn't take long for word to spread, and the boos began cascading down on the track, along with water bottles, beer cans and other debris.

Much to my amazement, despite the fans' obvious ire, most stayed in the stands to watch the rest of the race. Much to my amazement as well, I stayed glued to the couch, unable to look away as the F1 circuit committed suicide in the American marketplace -- and to the credit of the Speed Channel team covering the race, they didn't hesitate to land multiple body blows on everyone involved.

About the only folks talking any sense trackside were Scotsmen Jackie Stewart and David Coulthard. As many international racing fans are aware, 3-time world champion Stewart retired from the sport after seeing too many of his friends die on the circuit. He was very direct in telling the Speed Channel reporter that installing the chicane on Turn 13 (a change the track managment at Indy was more than ready to make) was the only logical solution all around. Click here for an image of what a chicane looks like.

As for current F1 driver Coulthard, he seemed to be the only person involved who immediately understood the magnitude of yesterday's blunder:

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 19th, 2005 at 1:07 am by Eric McErlain and is filed under Auto Racing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.