20-06-2005, 07:20 PM
Usually, in the same sentence, this refers to the munched destruction of my fingernails as the events of a GP draw onwards. Today, however, it meant something different. It wasn't the biting but the accumulation of splinters under my nails as I scratched my head that caused the pain. I do not want to go over the events again, once is enough already. But this is indicative of a far larger problem.
ITV's gallant commentary team did their best to make this better than Celebrity Love Island, a disaster ITV is truly responsible for, and went on for a couple of hours about what has happened and how we all feel about this. We now know the answers to these two questions. To fully appreciate the situation, in my opinion, we need to go back in time to
the end of last year. As an avid fan, and I remain such despite today's fiasco, I was incredibly surprised to read that cars were going to limited to a single tyre for both the race and qualifying. My first thoughts were towards safety.
Surely one tyre can't survive an entire race. But, miraculously, they have. The rule has even made racing less predictable. It's all good, in that respect.
I am willing to bet, being the least favourite fan of lawyers in the Entire world, that there were legal teams all over the USA drawing up lawsuits and counters to these suits seconds after Ralf Schumachers car ploughed into the wall. So far we have heard of no legal response from Ralf, Toyota, Michelin and so on. But imagine if Ralf had hit the wall so hard that his career was over. And now we start to understand the edginess that Michelin started feeling. Is there a 10% chance this tyre will fail, 50%, 60%? What are the
percentages? Will it affect everyone? How much will this cost us? What do Michelin do? Well, they propose a safety measure, a chicane at around turn 13 to slow the cars down to an acceptable level (to be determined).
This goes to the teams and 9 agree. Hardly surprising considering that 7 of them are on Micehlins and the other 2 are small boys pretending to be big boys. But Ferrari doesn't agree.
Now, before we drag Ferrari over the coals, let's have a little look at this.
All year Ferrari have been relegated to the side lines. Ferrari have said, and their tyre supplier has agreed, that the main reason for this is their tyres. So along comes the opposition and says, "Sorry, we messed up, we'd like to pop a little chicane in. It'll further hamper you despite the good job you already have done, hope you don't mind." Ok, might have ad libbed that, but it's kind of a synopsis. Does Ferrari say, "Sure. Staple my other foot to the ground."? No, they say, "Um, no." And rightly they should. What did Michelin come to the table with? Flav and a couple of other boys said that they were prepared to sacrifice points. But I am willing to bet Ron and Frank were up there saying, "Not on my watch!" And, if the shoe was on the other foot, would the rest of the grid have said yes? No, I don't think so. Ok, Ferrari, don't race. It's just you, Jordan and Minardi and they normally conk out before half distance. No. It's about money and lawyers. I need not have to remind anyone that 11 years, this year in fact, after the death of Ayrton Senna the last case against a Williams employee was concluded. The FIA has the same idea, whether as a result of Ferrari being their main bed partner or not, and says the chicane is a no go. The rest we know.
So, what does this mean? It means a few things to me and these are significant.
1) F1, as we know it, has suffered a near fatal stroke. Today has proved that the teams will not work together. Why? Simple, the GPWC, the New Labour of motor racing. All the big teams are in it, with the exception of Ferrari, and a blow to F1 like what happened today will only serve to prevent the minnows from defecting to the FIA. Today will be held aloft by the GPWC teams as an example of what F1 will be once the GPWC is in place. Look at it like that and there is not really a big old future there.
2) There will probably not be an American F1 GP ever again. Unless they refund the tickets from today they will have to give them away next year to assure an audience. Either that or next year tickets to the US GP will be cheap enough for anyone to go.
3) Michelin is going to be flogged. This is not as good as you may think. Remember point 1? Remember that 7 out of the 9 teams in the GPWC are on Michelins? The teams and Michelin have done a lot of work together and you have to believe that, with the bigger picture in mind, Michelin was planned to be the sole tyre supplier to the GPWC from the start. If something happened, like what happened today, in the GPWC then they'd have quietly and calmly sorted it out, race on. I personally feel that hammering Michelin is just going to hurt F1 more. It's a real catch 22, not doing anything will make the top brass look impotent which is just as damaging.
4) Ferrari is going to be under more pressure to leave the FIA or face racing itself. Watch the next six months. Those new rules proposed by the FIA for 2008 might not be needed.
One thing is for certain, Bernie has his work cut out for him. This is going to have to be handled incredibly well.
For all our sakes. France in 2 weeks, what a difference these two weeks will make.
Written with help from Steve Tompkins
ITV's gallant commentary team did their best to make this better than Celebrity Love Island, a disaster ITV is truly responsible for, and went on for a couple of hours about what has happened and how we all feel about this. We now know the answers to these two questions. To fully appreciate the situation, in my opinion, we need to go back in time to
the end of last year. As an avid fan, and I remain such despite today's fiasco, I was incredibly surprised to read that cars were going to limited to a single tyre for both the race and qualifying. My first thoughts were towards safety.
Surely one tyre can't survive an entire race. But, miraculously, they have. The rule has even made racing less predictable. It's all good, in that respect.
I am willing to bet, being the least favourite fan of lawyers in the Entire world, that there were legal teams all over the USA drawing up lawsuits and counters to these suits seconds after Ralf Schumachers car ploughed into the wall. So far we have heard of no legal response from Ralf, Toyota, Michelin and so on. But imagine if Ralf had hit the wall so hard that his career was over. And now we start to understand the edginess that Michelin started feeling. Is there a 10% chance this tyre will fail, 50%, 60%? What are the
percentages? Will it affect everyone? How much will this cost us? What do Michelin do? Well, they propose a safety measure, a chicane at around turn 13 to slow the cars down to an acceptable level (to be determined).
This goes to the teams and 9 agree. Hardly surprising considering that 7 of them are on Micehlins and the other 2 are small boys pretending to be big boys. But Ferrari doesn't agree.
Now, before we drag Ferrari over the coals, let's have a little look at this.
All year Ferrari have been relegated to the side lines. Ferrari have said, and their tyre supplier has agreed, that the main reason for this is their tyres. So along comes the opposition and says, "Sorry, we messed up, we'd like to pop a little chicane in. It'll further hamper you despite the good job you already have done, hope you don't mind." Ok, might have ad libbed that, but it's kind of a synopsis. Does Ferrari say, "Sure. Staple my other foot to the ground."? No, they say, "Um, no." And rightly they should. What did Michelin come to the table with? Flav and a couple of other boys said that they were prepared to sacrifice points. But I am willing to bet Ron and Frank were up there saying, "Not on my watch!" And, if the shoe was on the other foot, would the rest of the grid have said yes? No, I don't think so. Ok, Ferrari, don't race. It's just you, Jordan and Minardi and they normally conk out before half distance. No. It's about money and lawyers. I need not have to remind anyone that 11 years, this year in fact, after the death of Ayrton Senna the last case against a Williams employee was concluded. The FIA has the same idea, whether as a result of Ferrari being their main bed partner or not, and says the chicane is a no go. The rest we know.
So, what does this mean? It means a few things to me and these are significant.
1) F1, as we know it, has suffered a near fatal stroke. Today has proved that the teams will not work together. Why? Simple, the GPWC, the New Labour of motor racing. All the big teams are in it, with the exception of Ferrari, and a blow to F1 like what happened today will only serve to prevent the minnows from defecting to the FIA. Today will be held aloft by the GPWC teams as an example of what F1 will be once the GPWC is in place. Look at it like that and there is not really a big old future there.
2) There will probably not be an American F1 GP ever again. Unless they refund the tickets from today they will have to give them away next year to assure an audience. Either that or next year tickets to the US GP will be cheap enough for anyone to go.
3) Michelin is going to be flogged. This is not as good as you may think. Remember point 1? Remember that 7 out of the 9 teams in the GPWC are on Michelins? The teams and Michelin have done a lot of work together and you have to believe that, with the bigger picture in mind, Michelin was planned to be the sole tyre supplier to the GPWC from the start. If something happened, like what happened today, in the GPWC then they'd have quietly and calmly sorted it out, race on. I personally feel that hammering Michelin is just going to hurt F1 more. It's a real catch 22, not doing anything will make the top brass look impotent which is just as damaging.
4) Ferrari is going to be under more pressure to leave the FIA or face racing itself. Watch the next six months. Those new rules proposed by the FIA for 2008 might not be needed.
One thing is for certain, Bernie has his work cut out for him. This is going to have to be handled incredibly well.
For all our sakes. France in 2 weeks, what a difference these two weeks will make.
Written with help from Steve Tompkins