All F1 2005 Discussions

[MovedGoalPosts]

I don't think there was an option to provide alternative Michelin tyres. I've read that Michelin looked into that, but as all their tyres relied on the same basic construction they were all likely to fail. It wasn't the compound, it was how they actually moulded them.

Simply put the only way there could have been a safe race was to slow all cars down on the bend. That needed a chicane. There wasn't agreement on that. F1 looses what credibility it had.

Touring cars and similar "lesser" classes are much more interesting.

[sherer]

they brought another tyre out for the Sunday morning session and that tyre had the same problem..

maybe if Bridgestone had shared the Indy 500 track data it had with Michelin this wouldn't have happened

[punky]

Originally Posted by sherer

they brought another tyre out for the Sunday morning session and that tyre had the same problem..

maybe if Bridgestone had shared the Indy 500 track data it had with Michelin this wouldn't have happened

You would have thought someone, somewhere would have forseen this problem though? How can Michellin design a tyre, and not look at all the courses in the season? Surely before the season began, someone should have looked at the US course and knew the tyres wouldn't be safe.

[sherer]

i don't know enough about tyre construction to answer that but during the 500 the IRL teams had problems with the tyres and the surface.. in fact this was only diamond ground down before the race due to the problems so it only changed in May.. there is no testing at this venue either

Even the FIA say they don't know enough about tyres to police these things properly.

I have no doubt if Ferrari weren't able to start the race a solution would have been found

[Nugget]

Originally Posted by sherer

they brought another tyre out for the Sunday morning session and that tyre had the same problem..

maybe if Bridgestone had shared the Indy 500 track data it had with Michelin this wouldn't have happened

But why should Bridgestone share the information? They are employed by a number of teams to provide tyres, and perform their own R&D - Michelin should have done the same thing.

[sherer]

Originally Posted by Nugget

But why should Bridgestone share the information? They are employed by a number of teams to provide tyres, and perform their own R&D - Michelin should have done the same thing.

Bridgestone raced at the Indy 500 and Michelin didn't they could have shared the data on the track surface with Michelin in the interests of safety, although i doubt even Bridgestone knew this situation would arise..

that is one of the problesm with F1 today each team, engine manufacturer etc only looks after it's own interests and so never share data with each other etc

[Graham]

Originally Posted by iadom

FI Shame

Quote.
'Sadly Ferrari and the sport's governing body, the FIA, did not see it that way, refusing to acquiesce'

More to the point, as I said above:

"I tried a million things and thought that if we could get them on the grid we were halfway there." - Bernie Ecclestone.

He figured he could call the team's bluff and that if they got to the grid they'd cave in and go ahead and race. Too late he found out they weren't bluffing.
__________________

Originally Posted by andygrif

the dreadful diamondcut track surface

The thing is, the diamondcut surface was designed to give Indy Cars greater grip as they're the ones that use that track most of the time, so it's not fair to describe it as dreadful simply because F1 cars are different.
__________________

Originally Posted by j52c

What happened on Sunday was down to Bernie Ecclestone and friends. He has been talking about a 1 tyre supplier for the last couple of months,

The irony is that, if they *had* only one tyre supplier and it had been Michelin, there wouldn't have *BEEN* a race without a chicane, full stop!
__________________

Originally Posted by punky

The issue seems to be that the tyre couldn't run at high speed on that particular banked corner. Why not just brake down to a safe speed for the corner then?

You can't have one lot of cars going through a corner at a slow speed with another lot blasting past at full whack, that would be a recipie for utter mayhem and definitely not safe.
__________________

Originally Posted by punky

You would have thought someone, somewhere would have forseen this problem though? How can Michellin design a tyre, and not look at all the courses in the season? Surely before the season began, someone should have looked at the US course and knew the tyres wouldn't be safe.

But they can't test at Indianapolis and that's the only one with a high speed banked corner in it, so there's no comparable data from other tracks for Michelin.

It wasn't until they took Ralph Schumacher's tyre away and analysed it at a laboratory that they realised what the problem actually was.

Bridgestone, OTOH, knew from Firestone what sort of stresses the tyres would encounter and manufactured accordingly.

i wonder what would have happened had ferrari therefore michael schumacher been running on michelin tyres.
i bet a compromise would have been reached then.

[sherer]

Originally Posted by andy 1

i wonder what would have happened had ferrari therefore michael schumacher been running on michelin tyres.
i bet a compromise would have been reached then.

i agree there even if it had just been Ferrari they would have done something instead of just stood there blaming each other

according to f1-live.com,champcars are going to give free entry to the next champ car race to anybody who had a ticket for yesterdays f1 race.
why couldn't f1 come up with something to appease the fans,even if it was another usa grand prix at the end of the season (non points).

[paulyoung666]

time for a big big big shake up in f1 management methinks

[Graham]

Originally Posted by andy 1

according to f1-live.com,champcars are going to give free entry to the next champ car race to anybody who had a ticket for yesterdays f1 race.
why couldn't f1 come up with something to appease the fans,even if it was another usa grand prix at the end of the season (non points).

Michelin should have offered a refund of all the tickets. Ok, it would have cost them a few million quid, but to a company that size that would practically be petty cash and it would have at least helped mollify the ill-feeling a little.

The Indianapolis Speedway is telling people who want refunds they "should complain directly to Formula One's rulers and French tyre company Michelin".

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle...toryID=8831737

Although that article also says: "Williams said Indianapolis promoter Tony George and Formula One commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone had both agreed to the chicane in a meeting with teams on Saturday night but FIA president Max Mosley had vetoed it.

"Bernie called (FIA race director) Charlie (Whiting) on Saturday night and said get on with it," said Williams, who pointed out several precedents including the 1994 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps."

[iadom]

If Bridgestone manufactured a tyre specifically for this race you have to ask yourself why, was it on performance grounds or safety, or a combination of both. If it was in even the slightest way for safety considerations, then they have a moral duty to inform the others of this. I would suspect that had a fatal accident occured and it was later revealed that Bridgestone witheld information that could have prevented it, they would be in deep trouble.
If Bridgestone knew of safety concerns, then Ferrari also knew, if Ferrari knew then it is a cast iron certainty that M Schumacher knew. It is rather ironic that the one driver to have major, life threatening crash was none other the Ralf Schumacher.
I'm am sure that if my little brother was about to go round a track at 200mph with suspect tyres I would have told him.

[j52c]

Originally Posted by SMHarman

I read / heard that Ferrari were not against the chicane, nor for, just silent.

I am afraid Ferrari were against the chicane, Ross Brawne said after the race that if the chicane was going to be built, he and Ferrari bosses would have vetoed it.

Another interesting thing, isn't Michael Shuemacker (can't spell his name so MS from now on) the drivers spokesman for safety issues. Where was he in all this, did he know what the outcome was going to be? Did he put his role as safety spokesman aside so he an RB (can't spell his name either) can get easy points?

See what happens now the 7 teams have been summoned to a meeting with fhe FIA. Max Mosley was also behind this, he thought he would give the teams who want to breakaway a lesson, just as he did with Bar. Who were the other teams using the same fuel tank, odds on we know who one was.

[paulyoung666]

what i cant work out is ..... , ho many years have they run there now , 4/5 or more and they couldnt provide a tyre that was suitable , summat wrong here