By Hilary
July 13 2005

Michelin tyres were said to be unsafe so all the Michelin runners could not race. They suggested various things like shipping in a fresh load of tyres, having a chicane built on the fast corner and allowing tyre changes, but all of them were rejected by the FIA. This in the end left 6 cars to race.

The US gp farce

Ralf Schumacher's crash during the practice sessions prompted an investigation into the Michelin tyres and it was found that the whole batch was unsafe and wouldn't be able to last past about 13 laps.  The teams understood that it was too much of a risk to their drivers to send them out racing as planned.  Coulthard was heard saying over the team radio that he would like to race anyway, which was either very brave or very stupid. 

9 out of the 10 teams (All the teams except for Ferrari) agreed not to race if a chiccane wasn't built on the banked corner.  This would slow the cars down and reduce tyre wear to a safe level.  Minardi boss Paul Stoddart claimed that Jordan broke the agreement and decided to race their cars, and so he decided to race the Minardi's as Jordan are their main competitor.

Fans who attended the race were disgusted, they didn't even know what was going to happen in advance and booed when all of the Michelin runners pulled into the pitlane after the formation lap.  Bottles were thrown onto the track and a full beer can was thrown in front of Michael Schumacher's Ferrari.  This would have been very dangerous had he hit it.  There were loud protests from fans asking for a refund. 

The race, if it could be called that, was like two races on the track at the same time.  The two Ferraris were at the front racing each other and the Jordans and the Minardis were quickly lapped and they raced each other.  At least the Ferraris did race each other, for most of the race anyway.  Schumacher started off ahead of Barrichello but Barrichello overtook him after Schumacher had a 16 second pit stop as they were checking his left rear tyre.  There was an exciting incident when Schumacher was coming out of the pitlane and Barrichello overtook him, but Schumacher didn't give him any space and Barrichello went across the grass.  After the second pit stop they were told not to race anymore.  Thus Schumacher kept his lead until the end of the race. 

Ferrari allowed their team radio to be broadcast, which is something the don't usually do.  However they lived to regret that decision and Rubens was shown a sign saying "no Radio" part way through the race and that was the last we heard of that. 
 
In the back end of the race they went round in the order they qualified (Monteiro, Albers, Karthikeyan, Friesacher), until Albers had to pit.  This put the two Jordans in third and fourth.  Later Friesacher was delayed in the pits and Albers got back ahead of him.  Monteiro beat his team-mate Karthikeyan quite convincingly but really his podium was little more rewarding than when tourists visit a race track and are allowed to climb on the podium.

When it came to the podium one of the ITV presenters said he would personally thump Schumacher if he did a celebratory jump on the podium.  He didn't though.  The two Ferrari drivers walked off as soon as they had recieved their trophies leaving Monteiro to celebrate his first ever podium on his own.  In a way I felt sorry for him as his first podium position, which is supposed to be such a great memory came about under such farcical conditions. 

Because of Coulthard's unfortunate qualifying position (16th) and the fact that all the drivers who qualifieed behind him raced, it means that Coulthard will go out first in qualifying at Magny Cours.  Klien will go out 3rd.  This will put both drivers at a bit of disadvantage, so let's hope they can bounce back from that. 

Coulthard said he "was very embarassed to be in the situation" and also said he was "disappointed that mature adults couldn't find a solution that would let us go racing".  He did well to find something positive to say about the whole thing when he said that it gives BAR one less race to catch up with Red Bull Racing.

During the race all the team bosses of the Michelin runners got together to release a press release, which basicly said sorry for Michelin's mistakes and that driver safety was important.  They also told of how they tried to reach a compromise so they could race, even offering to race for no points, providing the chiccane was put in.   A chiccane could have been put in in as little as 45 minutes, but the FIA would not agree to it. 

This is very bad for f1 in the USA.  It has even lead to doubts as to if there will be another gp there again.  The Red Bull Racing team want drum up more American support for f1.  It is something they are passionate about.  The Red Bull Racing team have put a lot of resources into finding a good American driver and this will be a blow to them.  I wonder if they will be so keen to push Scott Speed forward now.