Scirocco's Vroom Vroom Journal

So, 7 teams didn't race at the Indianapolis Formula 1 race this weekend, leading to a joke of 6 cars racing. I watched it. If it wasn't so sad, it would have been funny.

Michelin advised the 7 teams that run its tires that it couldn't guarantee their safety if they raced, due to their tires being insufficient for racing at Indy, with the high speeds and downforce generated on the banked turn 13. They also had not provided a secondary tire for use for some reason this weekend.


Now, let me get this straight. Michelin, the dominant tire manufacturer in F1 right now, who have been racing Formula 1 for 5 years, and many other races for much longer, managed to LOSE ALL THEIR CAREFULLY MAINTAINED DATA from the past 5 races, that indicate just how much stress these tires are under in that corner, and designed a tire that was unable to sustain the speeds necessary without exploding, causing not one, but two accidents in qualifying/practice, and then quite probably ended any chance of F1 making any in-roads into the US for a long time, if ever. AND, then have the gall to ask that the track be redesigned to allow their cars to run safely, when it was their responsbility in the first place.

Michael Schumacher put it pretty well: "Bridgestone-shod teams haven't been performing as well at many of the races, but we finally showed up with as reliable and well-performing tire for this race. Can you imagine what would have happened if, at previous races, we didn't have the qualifying speed in two laps, and so we asked for a third lap to qualify better? We would have been laughed off the grid."


It's all sad, ugly, and a bad blow for Formula 1.