Well we did use different paving surfaces.. remember, Indianapolis, is set up for the firestone tires.. they have a harder compound and last longer.

 

heh, now that I'm not pissed off anymore I'm back to post, lol.

What a day I must say! Can you guys believe this siht.???

I'm still never buying a Michelin tyre/tire as long as I live.

I cant really blame the teams and team managers for not racing... maybe it was unsafe, maybe they were all dramatising in first place thanks to Michelin.

But seriously, why should FIA and F1 change rules just because Michelin cant get their sh*t together?? Typical French I tell you. If I was a Michelin equiped team I would switch to Bridgestone after this, and not blame the FIA.

Thats one thing I like about they FIA, they take no sh*t.

 

Aaaaa-greed!!

Ditto!!

 

What an effin sham. A 73 lap parade brought to us by Bernie, Max and the inability to compromise for driver safety. Hey Mosely, when it's between safety and the rules, safety trumps! Guess your father wasn't the only **** in the family.

Fans shouldn't lob Foster's 36 oz. Ozzie grenades onto the track, either. Some dumba** in front of us launched one at the Ferrari's as they entered the braking zone for turn one. We got some of Indy's Yellow-shirts to kindly escort the disorderly jerk from the premises.

Note to Tony George, Do the right thing and refund our ticket costs. I don't think you want to hear about a 130,000 strong class-action lawsuit.

"Racing event" my foot.

 

Sorry bud - sounds like you had a bad day at the track. It should have been a great time for you and anyone else paying to see what never came off today. Sorry it turned out the way it did.

 

Ditto...here are a few places that one can voice they're discontent...

Michelin
46, rue du Ressort
63100 Clermont-Ferrand
France
www.michelinsport.com

FIA
8 Place de la Concorde
F-75008 Paris
www.fia.com

Formula One Management
6 Princes Gate
Knightsbridge
London SW7 1QJ
United Kingdom

 

It wasn't a tire wear issue it was a sidewall strength issue that Michelin was having and supposedly the excessive load in turn 13, the highest speed/banked turn was causing the sidewall to fail. Of course this is the same banking and turn thats been there the last six USGPs at Indy, so to me its no excuse. Michelin flat blew it... pardon the pun.

D

 

Yep

 

1. Before you blow off Michelin tires entirely, you might want to take a look at how they did with today's 24 hour Le Mans winner. In case you missed it, the Champion Audi team A slower, and heavier car to the Pescarolo Judds (due to regs), won while running on Michelin's. They won while putting their final set of Michelin's through an unprecedented quadruple stint. Pretty damn good those Michelins.

2. What is a "Typical French"?

3. Fun to see the hypocritical irony of the FIA's position on this tire issue and its alleged stance on safety. Yeah, the FIA take no S***, because they are so full of it.

 

Yeah, Michelin blew it at this race. But it isn't really the same banking and turn that has been used in the last 6 USGPs, is it. I mean the surface was repaved and repaved poorly. So poorly that it had to be reground for the irl and so poor that nascar had to cancel and reschedule it practice. That is not the same banking and turn thats been there the last six USGPs at Indy. I wonder if Michelin had a sister company running at the indy 497.5 or running under one of those taxicabs if they would have had the same problems?

 

The same points I made earlier..........

Still doesn't excuse Michelin from the bad decision not to bring a "back-up" tire to the race or the unprecedented decision to send a letter to the teams stating that they wouldn't allow the teams to race with their tires. Many, many times in the past, teams have had an "unfair" advantage because of tire choice (and fuel choice not that long ago). The Michelin teams should have had the choice on using the tires or not. They could have used the tires and then changed them thru-out the race and then let the officials sort out the possible rules infractions.

It was a major cluster-#### all the way around. Appears Michelin did not want to race at Indy this year.



edit: New info states that Michelin was not prohibiting the use of their tires, just that they would not "cover" their use. Weird !

 

The track is noticably more abrasive than in previous years, I don't really fault Michelin as neither they nor anyone else tests at IMS (maybe there should be mandatory tests performed on all tracks post-resurfacing). Bridgestone, owner of Firestone, obviously had a testing advantage, as the Indy 500 was run on Firestone rubber, and if you'll recall there were a number of track surface/ excessive abrasion issues during April and May. No, for me the problem lays in not having a plan in place at the FIA executive level to deal with potentially serious safety concerns that run afoul of regulations. I mean, this shocks the conscious, that the FIA would sanction a race, televised to over 100 countries, most with live feed, and then not even have a means of overcoming this political problem, with the results of what we saw today. Even a high school production has understudies as back-up, remember, "the show must go on".

As far as I'm concerned, Max Mosely should be impeached or whatever is done to overbearing, pompous a**es in Francolandia.

 

Exactly...

As silly as the picture below seems, I'm thankful that we're mourning a bad race tonight and not the loss of lives...

 

Sorry about missing your post. :smile: It has been a long day.


Could Michelin prohibit a team from from using their tire? At most I would think that they would not support or sanction a team from using their tire, but could they actually bar a team from racing while using one of their tires? I thought they basically said that they could not garauntee the structural integrity of a tire used at this race, specifically through turn 13 at speed and thererefore advisied the teams not to race them. The teams themselves made the decision not to race. I honestly don't know the answer to this.

As far as having an alternate tire (as per the statement from Chuckie Whiting to Michelin), I am not sure this would be feasible. I imagine that Michelin designs a tire that it feels would be safe and competative, not one that they think would be safe and competitive and still bring along a safer, less competative tire. The logistics of such a thing would be extensive. I figure the level of certainty was there in the design for them to bring the USGP spec rubber, and they were caught flat-footed. In effect however you are correct, they did bring an alternate tire, only a bit too late. The tires were there (I forgot what spec) in time for the race (not for practice however - serious handicap there), but as you suggested, the fia wanted the michelin teams to switch often during the race. Again, not to reasonable.

As I understand it, the tire defects affected different cars at different times to different degrees (obviously based on driver style, traction control, suspension design and aero load , amonst other variables). To even attempt to run safely, each car would have to come in the moment telemetry showed a variance in load or pressure. This would be chaotic at best and then the fia would be tasked with examinings and making rulings on each changed tire. We might not know the winner till the end of the season. And what would happen if one of the tires blew w/o warning or before a driver got to the pits, and a driver(s) were injured or killed (Ralfie Schu, Kimi)?

Agreed, it was a major cluster-f*** and I am not sure what the answer would be. Maybe run the race with the new spec michelins, let Bridgestone runners take the first six spots and aloow the rest to run for the last 2 points paying spots? I am not sure that would work, but what the hell, it is a suggestion.

 

You got it exactly. As does COOPeration in the post below. Crazy pic, that.

 

so, what does everyone think about how michael escaped the black flag on his re-entry from the pit pushing rubens off track?

 

I think the FIA is trying to obliterate F1.

First shafting Kimi with the tire fiasco
Then shafting Montoya with a super harsh black flag
Now shafting EVERYONE

Are they trying to make F1 suck for the drivers and the fans?

 

I wasn't there, so I don't know if I would have felt differenly had I been there, but the fans did get there money's worth...I mean every fan will always remember the 2005 indy f1 race...that ticket stub has to be a colector item by now...first double point finish for minardi, first monteiro podium, entertainment baby

Here's what I think happened in the meeting
"we will not race unless you put a chicane"
"We will not put a chicane, it's not in Ferrari's best interest" (btw I'm/was a ferrari fan)
"Then we won't race"
"ok but you must at least line up on the grid, this way we can claim there was a race and we don[t have to pay back all the money"
"no, we oppose"
"then we will fine you all"
etc

L

 

Apparently these T-shirts are all the rage in Paris this season.

 

One of our friends was sitting in a penthouse at the start/finish line and all the mucky mucks that were sitting near him were having serious conversations about the possibility of class-action lawsuits. He also apparently has some good video of what the mass of fans were thinking. He got the closeups of the stuff they won't show on tv, like the whole crowd shooting the bird, chanting cusswords over to the pit area, and stuff. He was sitting right at the start/finish and took a picture of michael as he crossed the line and has video of getting booed on the podium and he didn't even hold up the trophy or uncork the bottle, just walked off the podium. The IMS (indy motor speedway) guys wouldn't even come out to give the trophy, they refused to be a part of the whole thing. It'll be kinda interesting to go watch the video

 

There is a lot of blame to go around.

First, Michelin blew it. From there, it gets complicated. I applaud Michelin for taking the stance that they did. If they truly felt the tires were not safe, then the only responsible thing they could do is say that they cannot guarantee the safety of the tires on that track configuration. Had they not done that, and a tire blew, and some kid got killed outside turn 13, this would be much worse.

From the Michelin teams point of view, what could they do? If Michelin says the tires are not safe, and they use them anyway, and the kid outside 13 gets killed, they are at fault. They had no choice.

So solutions were offered. One solution appears to be, add a chicane, and only the Bridgestone runners get points. Somehow, 9 teams agreed to this, but one team (guess who) and the FIA rejected it.

So we have 9 teams willing to make a compromise in order to put on a show for the fans, and the FIA and one team not willing to do that.

Like I said, lots of blame to go around. But I still applaud Michelin for admitting the problem and protecting the fans and drivers.

 

I don't agree.
What I saw was Rubens left his braking really late in hopes of passing Michael coming out of the pit, then was not able to make the turn.

 

yeah, there was nothing wrong with that incident, although it would have been absolutely perfect had they taken each other out. Might have even made the whole thing worth watching.

 

Did anyone catch Windtunnel last night? Yes it's usually NASCAR forum, but this time the first 30min were with Peter Windsor and F1.

Basically as Peter put it, Michelin had the opportunity to test at Indy to develop the tyer, but only sent 2 drives... Ant Davidson and 1 other tester. They also had access to the banked corners in England at rockingham, but passed on that as well.

After 6 years on this track, and the opportunity to test, the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of Michelin. You can't blame the FIA for not breaking it's own rules to benefit one supplier over the other. And don't give me Ferrari vs the rest crap, otherwise there would have been allowances made for Bridgestone in the fist few races when their tyres couldn't go the distance.

The teams we also given the opportunity to detune the chassis, to take the stress off the tyers, but again opted to take the complaint and boycott approach.

On the bright side, Minardi reliability looked great

 

The test wasn't at Indy, it was in Europe. Additionally, there could be no way of proving that 'detuning' the chassis would have alleviated the issue at hand.

The track resurfacing, which caused both the IRL test and the Nascar test to be cancelled due to tire problems, caused the Michelin tires to fail.

No doubt that Michelin screwed up. But after that, they and thier teams tried everything they could to have a race for the fans, including running a race in which they were not allowed to score points. This was rejected by the FIA and Ferrari.

The fans lost yesterday, and a combination of engineering mistakes from Michelin and stubbornness and arrogance from the FIA are at the heart of it.