tenpastmidnight blog
Making hay while the sun shines
» Sunday, June 19, 2005 «
F1 at Indianapolis 2005 = farce
The Formula One race in Indianapolis has just started, with fourteen of the twenty race cars pulling off in to the pits to retire at the end of the parade lap. We have Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi still in the race.
This is because Michelin, who provide the tyres for all the cars that have retired, brought a batch of tyres for the weekend that turn out to be dangerous on the high speed corner which is a feature of the lap. They wanted to either use a different batch of tyres, or have an extra chicane added to the track - or at least that's what's being reported. They sent a letter to the teams saying not to race on the tyres, so the teams now can't, partly due to the highly litigious nature of America - if there's an accident due to the tyres and someone gets hurt, the team will be liable for the accident.
So... three teams 'racing', two of them by far the slowest on the grid. Good for Minardi and Jordan's advertisers, not good for all the fans in the stadium who've paid a lot of money to be there, and not good for the TV advertisers, as people will be turning off all over the world.
Although Michelin should be punished due to their poor engineering, apparently partly due to the new 'diamond cut' surface of the race track, this has made the whole sport look silly (well, even more silly than the silliness inherant in twenty grown men risking their lives racing each other in souped up cars.)
All that will happen now is F1 will be slated in America, and lots of fans have missed out on entertainment. It seems many of the people involved have forgotten what pays for the sport, and what makes it a sport to begin with. The word 'farce' is being bandied about in the interviews, and that sums up the situation perfectly.
This is because Michelin, who provide the tyres for all the cars that have retired, brought a batch of tyres for the weekend that turn out to be dangerous on the high speed corner which is a feature of the lap. They wanted to either use a different batch of tyres, or have an extra chicane added to the track - or at least that's what's being reported. They sent a letter to the teams saying not to race on the tyres, so the teams now can't, partly due to the highly litigious nature of America - if there's an accident due to the tyres and someone gets hurt, the team will be liable for the accident.
So... three teams 'racing', two of them by far the slowest on the grid. Good for Minardi and Jordan's advertisers, not good for all the fans in the stadium who've paid a lot of money to be there, and not good for the TV advertisers, as people will be turning off all over the world.
Although Michelin should be punished due to their poor engineering, apparently partly due to the new 'diamond cut' surface of the race track, this has made the whole sport look silly (well, even more silly than the silliness inherant in twenty grown men risking their lives racing each other in souped up cars.)
All that will happen now is F1 will be slated in America, and lots of fans have missed out on entertainment. It seems many of the people involved have forgotten what pays for the sport, and what makes it a sport to begin with. The word 'farce' is being bandied about in the interviews, and that sums up the situation perfectly.
