F1 season 2005

Once the smoke finally clears, it's going to turn out that "Student Pavers" (who were the final, low-priced, outsourced contractor) were responsible for the bad paving job on the track. Three twenty-year-old college students with a 15-year-old pick-up truck, some old, worn-out brooms, and a few pails of asphalt will then be responsible for settling the millions of dollars worth of fines and court awards.

If the U.S. doesn't want to host a race, we'll gladly take another one. We get sell-out crowds, good ratings, and we're a big country with plenty of room, unlike some of the other dinky countries on the map with two races. Besides we'd stay in the same U.S.-friendly timezone and could lure the Americans across the border and get everybody excited about racing again.

Toronto could host a race, so could Vancouver. A race in the Prairies would be a blast (and there would be no need to worry about hills or banked corners ) and I'd personally come on board (for a nice signing bonus of course and a generous percentage of the profits ) to organize a late night race up in the Territories. Think about it: racing under the midnight sun. Plus we could pitch it as an adventure tourism destination. See polar bears and wolves and whales along with F1 cars. It would be a different take on the normal glitz and glam circuit, and we could use the "exotic" nature to draw in even more publicity seeking celebrities. And in that kind of location any truly chi-chi event would be doubly so. Bernie, I'm waiting for your call.

On a more serious note, I'd love to see the list of tire suppliers opened up even further. Forget about going to a single supplier. Let everybody get in on the game. Hankook. Coker (white wides on F1 cars ). Canadian Tire. You name it. I mean nobody is suggesting that only Ferrari supplied engines or Mercedes bodies be used.


--Toronto

Originally Posted by DavidCane

I think you'll find that Bridgestone had a massive amount of data regarding the new track surface at Indy that Michelin didn't. This is because Bridgestone's sister brand Firestone supplied all the teams in May's Indy 500.

This is like comparing apples to oranges on the basis that they are both fruit. Indy is raced with slick tyres with the option of tyre changing and the principles of the design of Indy cars (downforce loads, setup etc.) are totally different. There is no comparison whatsoever.

Originally Posted by DavidCane

Michael Schumacher had two bridgestone tyres fail on him in the Spanish GP this year and he wasn't going particlarly fast at the time. Bridgestone have made the same mistakes as Michelin on some occasions this year. The Spanish GP track is probably the most tested on track in the world, so how Bridgestone managed to turn up to that race with an unsuitable tyre is even more ridiculous.

If you read my post carefully I am referring to tyre wear. Tyre puncture is a whole different story that can happen for a thousand reasons and mind you that most of these incidents involved carbon fibre debris or other car parts hitting the tyres.

Originally Posted by DavidCane

Raikkonen's tyre wear at the Nurburgring was because he went off track during the race and was generally raping his tyres. That was a single tyre out of 56 on track, and it never actually burst.

If i'm not mistaken several cars had to go off track in the same race none of them however presented the wear and deformation of Raikkonen's right front tyre as well as the rear one. Don't forget that McLaren was ready for a 3 tyre change a few laps before the incident.
I can bring several examples here regarding Michelin tyre wear. Just remember Monaco and the wear on Alonso's rear tyres (almost no grooves left) that made him lose several positions and both Williams cars could overtake him just before the "nouvelle chicane" like he was stopped!

Originally Posted by DavidCane

The rules should also consider all possible situations and contain contingency plans for them. By introducing a 'one tyre-set per GP' rule for 2005, the FIA fialed to consider the worst case scenario. The fact that this contingencly wasn't written into the rulebook last year when ths tyre rules were set in stone, this is to blame for the lack of a meaningful race last weekend.

Well there is a contingency plan for the tyre failing to finish a whole race and that is the tyre change! The new rules don't forbid tyre change for safety reasons. They just don't allow for simultaneous tyre change and refuel. So this means that the Michelin teams could very well take an extra pit-stop to change tyres in the middle of the race or whenever they judged necessary.

Originally Posted by DavidCane

They also took a very responsible and honest approach knowing full well what damage it could cause to thier image. Admitting a mistake and making no excuses about it probably saved lives this weekend.

My initial remark was that this incident shows a lot to a cautious observer of F1 regarding the performance of this year's Michelin teams. What exactly was the mistake that Michelin admitted? That they have been providing tyres that compromise safety for the sake of performance? I didn't see that. Furthermore we have a fact here:
The fact is that a tyre make (Bridgestone) completed a race on all 3 teams participating with no problems even though the race involved numerous brake blocks, a track exit by Barrichello and several beer bottles on the track! And mind you that the Ferraris at least had a really competitive race (Schumacher lap 1:11:497, Barrichello lap 1:11:649).

I would also like to comment Paul Stoddard's remarks. This guy's behaviour is imho the best joke in F1. Don't forget what he tried to do on the season opening. He threatened to take FIA to the courts on the grounds that the new regulations were not to his liking and that he didn't want to conform. For this reason he introduced the last year's Minardi car with a last minute "aero package" just to have two slowly moving ad signs rotating the track and causing all sorts of safety problems to the other drivers.
He is the last person to discuss safety and regulations.

Originally Posted by amyndas

I would also like to comment Paul Stoddard's remarks. This guy's behaviour is imho the best joke in F1. Don't forget what he tried to do on the season opening. He threatened to take FIA to the courts on the grounds that the new regulations were not to his liking and that he didn't want to conform. For this reason he introduced the last year's Minardi car with a last minute "aero package" just to have two slowly moving ad signs rotating the track and causing all sorts of safety problems to the other drivers.
He is the last person to discuss safety and regulations.

Agree with you on that one amyndas and I kow he has a personal issue with Mosley but this time I have to agree with Stoddart. Mosely needs to go. Interestingly, I picked up my copy of F1 racing yesterday and there is an article in about Mosley being toppled and Stoddart is saying that Dave Rcihards should be the man to replace him? Hmmmmm, not so sure about that. Richards would ahve to give up a lot of his other stuff to focus on the FIA.

I like this comment attributed to Mosely at f1-live.com


"Moving on a week and the seven team's and Michelin are busy preparing for a hearing in Paris. Mosley admits that he would not exclude a 'ban or two' as a result of the hearing by also added that until everyone has made their case, it cannot be clear what punishment, if any, will be imposed. "


Sounds good ...

Maybe 6 car races are to become the norm ..

why not just be done with it and let the ferraris 'race'

Originally Posted by dpat

why not just be done with it and let the ferraris 'race'

That's fair because ,as you can guess, F1 stands for Ferrari 1

I like the report that Mr Michelin has complained about Max bringing disrepute on the Michelin company.

I hear that Michelin are going to refund the ticket money to F1 fans in the states and also that there has been a mass action taken out against the IMS. What is going to happen this weekend after this FIA hearing is anyones guess.

Originally Posted by dpat

I hear that Michelin are going to refund the ticket money to F1 fans in the states and also that there has been a mass action taken out against the IMS. What is going to happen this weekend after this FIA hearing is anyones guess.

Well not only that but they announced that they are willing to pre-purchase 20000 tickets for next year's Indy to provide all the dissapointed spectators of 2005.
If this is not "de facto" admitting the responsibility for the f@ck-up what is?

Originally Posted by amyndas

Well not only that but they announced that they are willing to pre-purchase 20000 tickets for next year's Indy to provide all the dissapointed spectators of 2005.
If this is not "de facto" admitting the responsibility for the f@ck-up what is?

Well Michelin are resonsible for the teams not being able to race safely, but the FIA are responsible for intranscience. Michelin are paying out as a PR excecise

Michelin did not delibrately set out to make a tyre unfit for purpose of racing no matter what spin the FIA put on it. Bridgestone did definitely get a help from their subsiduary Firestone regarding how the surface had changed and that tyre wear etc was going to be a problem compared to previous year. I know others have said that they use diferent tyres in IRL etc but the intelligence info still helps when you are designing a tyre .People are also saying that Michelin are pushing the envelope more than Bridgestone and that Raikkonins tyre problem was due to Michelin pushing the envelope...Funny thig is that the tyre did not fail even though it was badly flatspotted due to bad driving , rather the suspension failed.

As has been said before..
FIA - when you need Crisis management, the FIA resonds with Management in a Crisis .

Stori mate you HAVE to read this - its from a FIA press conference with Max Mosley - " The third charge was refusing to race subject to a speed restriction, and they(the teams) were found not guilty because there was no clear plan in place as to how that would be done." WHAT?!?WHAT !! HAHAHA WTF... i mean this very much sums up the "without a clue" FIA. Max is officialy brain-dead. You can read the complete BS at http://www.formula1.com/race/news/3240/740.html

Overall i'm very happy about the fact that they didn't destroy the season and they will probably impose only financial penalties but only if Michelin compensates fans. So far so good, so lets get back to racing

Originally Posted by Stori

Well Michelin are resonsible for the teams not being able to race safely, but the FIA are responsible for intranscience. Michelin are paying out as a PR excecise

Michelin are paying their designing this year's tyres on the edge of safety

Originally Posted by Stori

Michelin did not delibrately set out to make a tyre unfit for purpose of racing no matter what spin the FIA put on it. Bridgestone did definitely get a help from their subsiduary Firestone regarding how the surface had changed and that tyre wear etc was going to be a problem compared to previous year. I know others have said that they use diferent tyres in IRL etc but the intelligence info still helps when you are designing a tyre .

If they didn't deliberately do it then they are incompetent as much as they are bad in PR. There is no benefit whatesoever from a subsidiary that runs a slick multi-tyre change race with the aerodynamics of IRL cars any more than there is benefit from Michelin's huge data record of previous years' racing in Indy with different rules.

Originally Posted by Stori

People are also saying that Michelin are pushing the envelope more than Bridgestone and that Raikkonins tyre problem was due to Michelin pushing the envelope...Funny thig is that the tyre did not fail even though it was badly flatspotted due to bad driving , rather the suspension failed.

Come on Stori you should know better than that! Why did the suspension fail? Because it could not accomodate the strain induced by a totally deformed badly vibrating (actually bumbing) tyre under flat out conditions! As for the bad driving I don't think that you're being fair to Raikkonen. The less competitive team drivers were treating their tyres much worse and their driving was awful with numerous outings and they still didn't do the same damage.

Originally Posted by Stori

As has been said before..
FIA - when you need Crisis management, the FIA resonds with Management in a Crisis .

Finally a badly handled crisis does not justify the totally irresponsible attitude of Michelin prior to the race. A tyre company should provide a safe tyre for their teams under any conditions and no matter what the circumstances. That's their job and they should do it right. FIA's job is administrative and we can all debate on FIA's errors throughout the years but it's a totally different issue.

@Amyndas
1) There is lots of useful information to be gained even though one formula uses slicks and the other "treaded" Tyres. There aparantly were changes to the track from last year to this year and Firesone would have known what affect this had on their tyres and passed it onto Bridgestone so that they could change their model to allow for it.

An other interesting bit of infoirmation is that Indy Circuit does not allow tyre testing by F1 tyre manufacturers.... So Michelin would have to "guess" how the track was going to differ from last year . Just what every one needs...best guess designing of tyres

2) Maybe Raikkonen should not lock his brake sup and flat spot his tyres


3)Well Michelin is resposible to supply a tyre that works...but someone did not think of what was going to happen if a tyre was not going to be suitable for race, when they made the rules...

To be hionest, no one step up and sorted out the mess so that a race could be held and that is the most irresponsible thing that occured.

It sems that the only viable solution from the FIA hearing was that the Michelin teams could have used the pit lane instead of running through turn 13...what a joke