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[rallysanf]

zaktoo said:

Because why should Bridgestone take a hit for Michelin's incomeptence? Why exactly do you want the Bridgestone runners to have to lower their speeds when in fact they can cope adequately with the course as it was originally laid out? What about the compromise to their race setup & preparation?

Surely the issue here is not that the Michelin cars would be less slower than the Bridgstone cars, but potentially lethal! By allowing the chicane had the tyres failed the cars would likely be braking going into the chicane, rather than approaching 200mph.

Also it could have lead to some great drag races out of the chicane into the 1st corner where the track is so. Ferrari have proved to be the masters of altering their strategy when required - so may well have benefitted as they have shown in the past.
Take into account Michelin has shown erratic tyre where this year - look at the Renaults in Monaco - the extra braking & accelerating of the chicane could also have actually helped the Bridgestone runners - It would have been much more satisfying to see the Ferrari win having beaten 19 other cars.

Yes - Michelin screwed up - the FIA will make them pay for this you can bet on it.
BUT Michelin were thinking of driver SAFETY not performance. The teams were right to listen to their tyre manufacturer.
Ferrari - did nothing wrong according to F1 rules - but their we're alright jack attitude is slightly sickening. They should have advocated a PROPER motor race and worked with the other teams, not sat quitely in the corner.
A non campionship race with 18 cars would have been a better event than a championship race with 6
The FIA ruined what could have been a great race - as mentioned perviously - they delayed the start of the Brazilian GP on SAFETY grounds - this was a safety issue.
They could have delayed the start of the race 30 minutes - allowed the teams 15 minutes of free practice with the chicane - when the race was due to start - The TV coverage would have started so all teams would have had extra TV coverage - as would the crowd - then the FIA would be being praised for being inivative (spelling?)

[tuscan_thunder]

I see, from BBC, that the 7 teams have been charged with bringing sport into disrepute, including a charge of 'harming F1's public image'.

Surely Bernie, Max and Ferrari are guilty of that?

[daydreamer]

Very dodgy ground here. At the end of the day, we had 14 retirements due to component iminent failure. It is obvious that the retirements are pre-meditated, but to the letter of the law, the charges listed below are a little jumped up - the rules being interpretated in such a way to allow the intent of charging the teams, rather than charging teams as they have broken a specific rule.

Does this mean that every time we have a component failure in a GP, that the team in question is going to be strung up for failing to to bring a component of sufficient strength???

Glad to see that the FIA are busy trying to repair the damage done ...

autosport said:

» failed to ensure that they had a supply of suitable tyres for the race » wrongfully refused to allow their cars to start the race » wrongfully refused to allow their cars to race, subject to a speed restriction in one corner which was safe for such tyres as they had available » combined with other teams to make a demonstration damaging to the image of Formula One by pulling into the pits immediately before the start of the race » failed to notify the stewards of their intention not to race, in breach of Article 131 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations.

[vetteheadracer]

The FIA are a joke, they are trying to blame Michellin but Michellin bought new tyres over and FIA said "Non" it says in rule blah, blah "no new tyres, blah, blah"....

FIA should have allowed the teams to change to the new batch of Michellins.....now to try and blame the non-running teams is utter bollox.

Taxi for Max Mosley........

[NightDriver]

Its stupid they are getting charged. They did not race/retired due to faulty components simple. If one of the teams had problems with brake wear during the first lap of the race and from the telemetary decided to bring in there drivers for safety reasons then in the future they could be looking at a charge of bringing the sport into disripute?!?

The FIA would just say, you brought faulty goods to the race and there was no reason why you could not drive about at 50mph for the whole race.

From the way the FIA are dealing with this issue I hope the GPWC goes ahead and the sooner the better.

[aeropilot]

vetteheadracer said:

The FIA are a joke, they are trying to blame Michellin but Michellin bought new tyres over and FIA said "Non" it says in rule blah, blah "no new tyres, blah, blah".... FIA should have allowed the teams to change to the new batch of Michellins.....now to try and blame the non-running teams is utter bollox.

Michelin should have had an alternative set of tyres on hand before Friday, so they are still to blame here, not the FIA.

And didn't Michelin say they couldn't have guarenteed those Barcelona spec tyres even if they had been allowed to use them.
I haven't seen any references to say they actually did fly them out, wasn't it just an offer to do so????

I wonder from all the posters bleeting about...rules,rules etc how many have ever actually competed in motorsport.

[daydreamer]

aeropilot said:

I wonder from all the posters bleeting about...rules,rules etc how many have ever actually competed in motorsport.

Me for a start.

I still don't think that charges are relevant here.

If sticking to the rules, then as I mentioned above, all that is happend is that some cars retired due to a faulty component, that was only proven over the race weekend. They've paid their entry fee, but still have the right not to race if a failure appears iminent. No one is saying that the tyres were deliberately not up to it.

However, the only reason that the chicane was a possibility in this instance is that effectively after having retired the cars (and waivered the chance of points), the teams were prepared to go back out for the sake of entertainment, with the only thing at stake being the relatively small prize of the qualifying order for the next race.

The solution was for them all (apart from the six correctly equiped cars) to have a non-championship club race for a bit of fun (which is why we do it), and to reward the support.

If it is important to reward the support then, following the waiver of points, something should have been put on to do just that - with the final points outcome identical to what it was anyway.

If it is not important to reward the support then they should do what would be done at a club race, and race with 6 cars. If we can't get our cars ready to the extent that we are happy to race them, it just means that we have paid the £500 or whatever entry fee, all the travel, accomodation and subsistance costs for no reason.

Whist I accept that it would be technically possible for the teams to slow the cars around T13 (which it would not be in pretty much any formula other than F1), most of the drivers would then claim a problem with their cars, as they weren't as fast as they were in qualifying, and park their cars to save their engines. In a sport where the enforcement of waved yellows is a constant battle, volentary slowing before corners is never going to happen!

Therefore, it is the tyre company and its teams responsibility that they didn't score any points over the weekend.

However, there were possibilities that would have allowed some form of race / entertainment to go ahead anyway. There were certainly other interested parties that had a stake in the decision not to let this go ahead.

[tinman0]

NightDriver said:

Its stupid they are getting charged. ....... From the way the FIA are dealing with this issue I hope the GPWC goes ahead and the sooner the better.

its just posturing. theres something to be gained by pulling all the teams up like this. maybe divide and conquer tactics, trying to make the team bosses turn on each or somthing like that. for instance, if our Ron and Frank had led the way for all the teams to drop out the race they could be made the scapegoats and so forth.

however, if thats the game they are playing then they are very niave. however, its the only game i can think they are trying to play.

i reckon GPWC will be given the go ahead in the coming weeks and i've got my money on Indianapolis as a founding track for the new formulae.

[HiRich]

Incorrigible said:

My 2p... Once the Michelin tyre was deemed unsafe, In the meeting the question "do we want to put on a show for the fans ?" should have been asked Answer yes: Bung in the chicane, only Bridgestone runer score points, or accept that there are going to be a few very slow cars, which IMHO doesn't make it much of a spectacle (and with racing drivers mentality is just as unsafe) Answer no: Give the fans their money back and race with 6 cars

That is the 2p answer to what may turn out to have been the $1bn question, and is by far the most intelligent thing said on this post.

[Number 7]

All this talk of the Teams damaging the "sport" is laughable. As far as I'm concerned, Mosely is primarily responsible for this fiasco. Trouble is, how does anyone bring charges of disrepute against the governing body? It's clear there's been an enormous amount of favoritism by the FIA towards Ferrari in recent years, latterly evidenced by their bilateral Concorde Agreement that replaces the current version when it runs out. And it may be insignificant in overall terms, but didn't Brawn issuing instructions to his drivers not to race towards the end constitute team orders, which are specifically outlawed. Ferrari seem to have a knack of screwing the American race fans: remember the fixed 2002 race when Schumacher allowed Rubens to pass on the line as payback for a previously fixed race which Rubens lost? The US crowd's reaction then was similar to this weekend.

For Mosely (who'd ever trust that barrister son of a fascist) and Bernie, it was a win situation: 1. They get their favourite team back in the title hunt. 2. If the Michelin teams had raced, and a serious injury or death had resulted, it's diffcult to believe that that anyone could insitute legal proceeding against Mosely now that he moved from London to Monaco (I think) specifically to evade powers under the Europe-wide arrest warrant system. Not sure about Bernie though. and 3. The value of F1 has been significantly reduced, which the cynic might say was staged to allow Bernie to buy back F1 from the banks who own the majority shareholding, at a far lower price than he sold it to Kirsch for.

Stick to Moto-GP / WSB. You know it makes sense.