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Anyone else catch that embarrasing race Sunday? All the teams using Michelin tires pulled out, citing concern over the safety of one of the turns. Formula 1 says it's not their fault those teams came unprepared for the race. FIA has now "invited" all the teams who pulled out to a meeting next week to discuss possible sanctions, monetary, points and/or suspensions. What do you think?
For what those cars cost; carrying a few spare tire sets for different course conditions isn't out of the question.
My question is this...why is it that only the Michelin teams were advised by their tire manufacturer not to race? Is Michelin behind with their tires, or were they the only ones with enough sense to tell the drivers what they felt the real deal was? In NASCAR lately, we are constantly hearing about rule changes, etc., and attempts to slow the cars down...I read somewhere that the drivers had asked for a chicane to be put in to slow the speeds of the cars through the corner in question...if the drivers and team owners are blatantly asking for safety measures, why would their requests be ignored?
personally if they were warned about the tire situation and the track being too dangerous they should have been prepared however if they were "bound" to use the Michelin tire and decided not to race then they must be congratulated for standing up for their safety
They all ran the same tires and Ferrari was the "lone standout" towards boycotting the race. From what I gathered it was one accident and another spin/failure that caused the boycott....did Michelin do a greater check amongst more cars to see if the consistency of failure(s) would have occured on their tires or did they just poll the 2 incidents and go from there.
If I was an FIA officiate; I'd push Michelin to produce more information towards why they wanted the boycott. Pulling 2/3's of the field on race day isn't fair, especially for the fans. If tires that were in question pass any kind of inspection than Michelin should be fined.
Also; the driver's safety is always and should be the primary concern. Somehow, something isn't right with this whole situation. I got to do more follow-up on this.
Racewise; Kimi Raikkonen lost more points :*-(
From my understanding, under FIA rules, you cannot change the tires from which you qualified on. Michelin asked for an exception and FIA denied them.
Thru a news filter I came up with this.
http://forums.autoweek.com/thread.js...threadID=17183
It isn't all the answers, but covers some interesting points and then finally gets off topic. It bears watching as an interesting solution will come from this.
here is what went down. (You can see it on the FIA web site.)
Michelin sent a letter to the FIA saying the tires in thier (THEIR?) opion (OPINION??)were unsafe in turn 13 due to vertical load and requested that a Chicane be placed on the track in that turn. The FIA responded saying that would be unfare (UNFAIR?) to the 3 teams that brought the corect (CORRECT?) tires. The FIA said that the Michelin teams could pit for tires during the race with no penality because its a safty (SAFETY?) issue. (the current rules state that the set you qualified on must last the race If you need to pit for tires you can not fuel the car).
In short, michelin screwed the pooch and tried to cover thier (THEIR?) buts (BUTTS?!).