Of tires, chicanery and the FIA...

For months now I have been looking forward to Sunday's United States Formula 1 Gran Prix. I am working night shifts so I had to adjust my sleep schedule so I could get up at noon with 4 hours of sleep, watch the race and then go back to bed for another few hours. I was almost too excited to get to sleep but finally dropped off and was awoken by my alarm at noon. I went down stairs and turned on the TV just in time to see the cars lining up on the starting grid. They took their warm-up lap and came back to the grid - - - What's this??!! Fourteen cars went right back into the pits, pulled into the garages, shut down and the drivers got out!! The race started with only 6 cars on the grid!! The TV announcers started doing interviews trying to tell everyone what had happened. Something about the Michelin tires being a problem. The only cars that were racing were on Bridgestone. I was disgusted and went back to bed.

So now I've read the accounts and see what has happened. I have to think the FIA is about the most ignorant organization on earth! I knew that Ralf Schumacher and Ricardo Zonta had both crashed in qualifying but never thought of the reason. Michelin informed the GPDA and the FIA that their tires were not safe due to track conditions near the 13th turn - the final banked corner. Ralf was actually badly injured in a crash at the exact same spot several years ago.

Now both Michelin and the GPDA looked for ways around the problem and offered the FIA two possible solutions to whit: 1) Let Michelin bring in more suitable tires for the 7 teams via air from their warehouse in France and allow Bridgestone to do the same to make things equitable (new rules this year specify only one set of tires per car for the entire weekend), or 2) place a temporary chicane on the track near turn 13 to significantly slow the cars so that the existing Michelin tires could safely be used.

Incredibly, the FIA refused both of these potential solutions! As a result, all the Michelin shod teams pulled their cars and drivers out of the race rather than take the chance of someone being hurt or killed.

You can't blame the drivers for wanting to be safe. Afterall, it's their lives that are at stake! You can't blame Michelin. They were forthright about the safety of their tires even though it made their manufacturing quality look bad. Better that than have someone killed was Michelin's attitude. You certainly can't fault the individual teams for putting their driver's lives above their own interests.

So where does the fault lay? I think the long finger points directly at the FIA. Why would it have hurt to allow a new set of tires for all the cars, just this once, for the sake of safety? Doesn't the FIA care about driver safety? Failing that, what was the big deal about throwing some traffic cones up at turn 13 to put in a temporary chicane as the drivers suggested? Either of these solutions seem perfectly reasonable. Why would the FIA not sign off on them in order to save the race?

What an incredibly stupid way for the FIA to act!!

There. I feel better now!!