What can I say? This is just unbelievable… The Formula 1 grand prix in Indianapolis in the United States started today with 6, I repeat, 6 cars… The fourteen other race cars, all driving on Michelin tyres all retired from the race by only driving the formation lap and not even doing the race start. This is going to leave a very very black page in the history of Formula 1 and especially on Formula 1 in the United States.

“This was not a race, it was a farce.” - Paul Stoddart of the Minardi team

You’re probably wondering how the hell this happened… Well… On Friday in one of the free practices, Ralf Schumacher crashed with his Toyota on the banked curve of the circuit because one of his rear tyres burst. Michelin stated that they did not know the cause of the incident and they advised their teams not to race because they could not assure that the tyres were safe.

Obviously the fact that the race is held in the United States played a role in this statement since as a car manufacturer or a tyre manufacturer you can get sued if one of your drivers even just twitches his toe… And Michelin could not risk this kind of trouble.

The whole of Saturday and especially on Sunday, the FIA, Michelin and the teams tried to come up with solutions, among which building a chicane to slow down the cars and switch tyres mid-race. However, none of these solutions was agreed upon by all the parties involved, so no solution was found by the start of the race. This meant that all drivers drove the formation lap to abide by the rules and then retired before the race was even started.

This caused the horrific sight you see above on the right… Six lonely cars on the track… This is unseen in Formula 1 and I hope we’ll never get to see it again, it is horrific for the sport. American spectators will not like this at all and it could be doubtful that Formula 1 returns to the States at all next year…

In the end Michael Schumacher won closely followed by his team mate Barrichello. Monteiro of the Jordan team became third and celebrated as if he had driven the best race of his life… **rolls eyes** I’m sure he did a nice race, but a little professionalism and modesty would have been appropriate. This is not the way you want to score points. I also feel sorry for Minardi who now loses 4 points on Jordan because Jordan got so many easy points. Too bad…

People have all kinds of opinions on the matter and blame all kinds of people for the fact that only six drivers were at the start, but I think the main party to blame is Michelin and that’s it. While Bridgestone succeeds in making reliable tyres most of the time with the disadvantage that they’re not necessarily the fastest, Michelin seems to prefer to design their tyres on the limit… But this time… they went over the limit, and that is theirs and nobody else’s fault.

If Ferrari would have agreed on building a chicane or if the FIA would have been ‘easier’ on making tyre changes possible the Michelin drivers might have been able to race and it could have been a fun race. However, no matter how you look at it, Michelin made a huge error here and it’s going to cost them and Formula 1 as well, millions and millions of dollars.

In the end I’m reasonably happy with the result as it makes the championship somewhat more exciting, but this is not a race you enjoy…

Hmm… I’ll try to keep my post a little shorter next time ;)