Richard Casto wrote:
Wes, you lost me. I can't remember the details of the Honda punishment over the tank issue. But are you saying that because of that incident and with them being one of the teams that didn't race that they will get a six month ban?
Because BAR was on probation for the early incident rumor is they will get hit harder with penalties.
Goodyear Speaks Out
Quote:
Bill King
There's been much sympathy expressed - and ever so rightfully - for F1 race fans during and following that debacle Sunday that the FIA persists in calling the United States Grand Prix. Also receiving notes of condolence are the Hulman-George family and the hard working staff at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that opened its doors to the Formula 1 circus just three weeks after staging the Indy 500 - no mean feat.
But the old "tire guy" in me has been roused at the abuse heaped upon Michelin. Yes, they screwed up. The makers of the most mysteriously complex and vulnerable component of a modern racecar missed it; but I'll wager, not by much.
During my six-year stint as PR manager for Goodyear Racing, we understood that nobody pays any attention to tires until something bad happens to one of them.
The worst case scenario is unexplainable failures during pre-race sessions - just what happened to Michelin Friday. There is no bigger headache, because it throws the whole race weekend into jeopardy.
Goodyear pulled its new radial tire from competition following the first practice session for the 1989 Daytona 500 when both Dale Earnhardt and Bill Elliott lost right fronts and hit the wall. Elliott broke his wrist. "We are not in this to hurt our friends," said Leo Mehl, then head of worldwide racing for Goodyear. We had a slow, hard back-up tire that we offered. Everyone but Dave Marcis switched to Hoosier for the week and the show went on with Darrell Waltrip winning his only Daytona 500.
We had similar problems when we pulled our tires from the Coca-Cola 600. Hoosier assumed the sole-supplier role and Goodyear tire technicians helped our seriously understaffed competitor mount tires for the race.
Later in the Goodyear-Hoosier NASCAR tire war, both companies were disqualified for width irregularities. In those cases, the other company stepped up and supplied the field.
In 1985, Goodyear withdrew its new radial from the Michigan 500 over safety concerns, causing CART to postpone the race for a week. As sole supplier, we did not have a back-up. Big mistake.
However, the common thread through each of these tire calamities is that all parties - sanctioning body, track management, race teams, manufacturers - worked together to come up with a solution that allowed for a safe and competitive race.
That did not happen in the acrimonious political climate that had the Indianapolis Motor Speedway socked in for the weekend. The bottom line is that the FIA refused to consider any solution that would allow a full field to compete safely in the USGP Sunday.
"Compete" and "safely" are the operative words.
There would have been no "competition" had the Michelin teams pitted a half dozen times to change tires and no guarantee even then that a tire wouldn't fail.
That FIA competition director Charlie Whiting would suggest that the Michelin teams run at reduced speed through Turn 13 was irresponsible. To essentially mandate 20 to 40 mph closing speeds in the fastest corner in F1 racing with thousands of fans sitting outside the turn would have produced a criminally actionable situation should an incident have resulted in personal injury.
The very fact that the FIA would make such a suggestion shows a complete lack of knowledge of and/or disdain for U.S. laws concerning reckless endangerment. You can bet that the legal departments of Michelin, Toyota, Honda, BMW, Renault, DaimlerChrysler and Cosworth were fully aware of the slipperiness of that slope.
Any future FIA event on American soil will surely come under a legal microscope based upon the sanctioning body's heedless disregard for the safety of competitors and fans in making suggestions as to how to proceed over the weekend.
Subsequent actions by the FIA including dragging Michelin and its teams onto the World Motorsport Council mat next week are equally bizarre, given that FIA head Max Mosley claims to be a lawyer. The FIA is skirting on giving IMS attorneys all the ammunition needed to demand repayment of all fees should the sanctioning body materially punish the teams, an action that would tacitly admit that Formula 1 did not fulfill its contract with IMS.
In addition, the FIA has broken a cardinal rule of motorsport business. They have pilloried a major supplier - in this case Michelin, a $20bn a year corporation and arguably the best racing tire maker in the world.
As a tire guy, it breaks my heart.
As a 50-year Formula 1 fan, it breaks my heart.
As a fan of common sense and the elegant solution, it just pisses me off.
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) asking the question has never seen an F1 race nor do they know anything about it to keep asking the same question again. 
