F1 What is going on.

I could retract my comment yesterday but that is how I see it. If you stand back you would also agrees F1 has been a farce not just in US but has always been like this for the last few years.

 

Last year it wasn't..
Year before that it was at midnight, and the year before that at a sensible time - 6.30pm...
Now it's only on on Eurosport, which I refuse to pay for - being part of that Murdoch over-priced pap that is Sky..
No doubt it was dropped by the same schedulers who thought 3.30pm, then 4.30pm on a Sunday was a good time to show Star Trek - most folks i know are doing stuff in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, no time to sit and watch the telly all day. Especially if that eejit Vernon Kaye, and that bintyhoor Julia Whatever-her-name, are presenting it..

 

AFAIK Eurosport has nothing whatsoever to do with Murdoch or Sky. You can get it on cable and (I believe) Freeview. If those aren't options available to you you can get an independent (ie non-Sky) satellite dish and receiver on which you'll be able to recieve Eurosport and a bunch of other non Sky channels

Michael.

 

Tour de France - the only properly drug sanctioned sport!

As for the US grand prix. I say never again.Anywhere that has fans who throw half full beer cans at F1 cars should be banned forthwith.

Bob

 

How does it work if you have a non-Sky dish?
Do you need a separate decoder, or is a freeview box and tv tuner enough? Would I get all the beeb and itv channels, plus the German oompah channel?
Would never get Sky as I have a bit of a problem with giving any money to Mr Murdoch...

 

I'm not entirely sure. You do need a separate decoder though. The channels you get depend on which satellite your dish is pointing at. You can get dishes with 2 LNBs which allow you to pick up 2 satellites provided their relative close to each other in the sky. Beyond that you can get dishes on a motorized rotating equatorial mount which will (once setup correctly) move to point at the correct satellite for the channel you've chosen on the remote - that starts to get very geeky and expensive though!

I don't know if any of the beeb and itv channels are beamed via satellite aswell, it's been quite a while since I looked into all this stuff.

I thought you worked for the beeb - shouldn't you know all this stuff??

Michael.

 

Hi all,

Just thought you might like an insiders view as opposed to the viewers view!

The process went as follows:

Michelin and their teams test their tyres as they have done for years to pick the optimum tyre (the same is true for BS tyres). And as all teams use basically the same process it could have happened to BS teams instead of Mi teams.

We turn up at the track and find some problems with the tyres that after some analysis show that they are not safe to race. Michelin sends a letter to each of the teams so we have no alternative but to not race as we normally would.

Every interested party tries to negotiate a solution and fails. All having pretty major drawbacks.

Any race that has cars at very different speeds is very dangerous so running around the bend at a lower speeds is not really an option. More importantly Michelin could not specify a safe speed for that bend. If they had then each driver would go faster and faster until a tyre failure occured as they are racers.

Therefore all cars need to be slowed down during the race to race together in some measure of safety.

Please note RSC's accident last year should make it clear that motorsports are dangerous!

Going in to the pits every 3 laps for so many cars is again dangerous for the pit crews etc Also we don't know that the failure would occur only after 3 laps. So again not an acceptable option.

Therefore the chicane was suggested. Not only because it reduced the speed but more importantly changed the loading regime completely.

The issue of MI shod runners taking out BS runners is of course possible but very unlikely as they are all professional teams. All of this could have been negotiated I am sure.

But ultimately we had to put on a show and we (FIA, Michelin and the Michelin teams) failed.

Ian

 

Thanks Ian for sheding fome "insiders" light on this issue.

IMHO then the race should have been cancelled / postponed as only 6 cars started which I believe is against the rules to start with, and the cost of the rescheduling, refunds should rest squarely on Michelin for making such a huge cock-up. Its not like its a new track, it was perfectly fine last year, they bough the wrong tyres to the race, did Michelin have ANY tyre they could have ran the race with? Ie harder compound? if so could have the flown them in, and switched them in the pits, as I understand the rules that you CAN change the tyres if they are deemed unsafe?

 

Another perspective:

http://www.itv-f1.com/Feature.aspx?Type=James_Allen&PO_ID=33214

 

To be fair to Michelin on this point, the track has been resurfaced since last year with an apparently much more abrasive surface. Whether that had anything to do with the problem I don't know. Bridgetstone already had experience of the new surface because of their work (as Firestone) with IRL cars at the same circuit.

Michael.

 

Hi Lee,

"Its not like its a new track, it was perfectly fine last year"

The track surface was changed around the bend that caused all the problems. Michelin were not aware of this and neither were the teams.

On a related note the tyres do suffer a very different loading regime to any other circuit at Indy. Not an excuse but perhaps a mitigating circumstance.

"they bough the wrong tyres to the race, did Michelin have ANY tyre they could have ran the race with? Ie harder compound? if so could have the flown them in, and switched them in the pits, as I understand the rules that you CAN change the tyres if they are deemed unsafe?"

They tried to do this but as they could not identify (nor prove on a test rig etc) in the timeframe exactly what was causing the problem they were not able to supply a tyre that they could guarantee would work safely.

As Pierre Dupasquier (spelling?) said this was the worst race event of his career.

Ian

 

Hi Tones,

The article by James Allen contains many mistakes / errors etc. He is not a technical person and is often the case when talking about technical things he gets them wrong.

However, he probably isn't too far away on the politics!

Ian

 

Some of you may have seen it, but Paul Stoddart made a press release on monday:

http://www.minardi.it/press/dettaglio.asp?IDComunicato=1875&LN=UK&IDGara=&IDComunicatiTipo=

 

Thanks again Ian.

So only BS knew about the resurfaced track, so the FIA, teams nor the tyre makes knew it had been resurfaced, surely that's another error someone has made. They knew about the resurfacing in Canada.

With BS having been able effectivly to test theyre tyre on this track, that then gives them an unfair advantage due to the other teams not being able to test on this track.

Something still isn't adding up here, maybe they wanted this to happen as an excuase to either force the USA to build a purpose track or pull out of the US altogether?

This is very fishy!

 

I'm sure that everyone knew about the re-surfacing, it was hardly a secret. However, Michelin hadn't had an opportunity to test on the resurfaced track whereas Bridgestone (as Firestone) did by virtue of their participation in other events at the track.

Exactly. He's seriously the weakest link in ITV's F1 coverage.

Paul Stoddart should learn when to keep his mouth shut. He's not doing F1 or himself any favours with his constant outbursts

Michael.

 

Thanks, Ian, I happened to spot it and thought I'd toss it in.

 

As a non follower of F1 can I ask why all the teams didn't just use BS tyres?

BS would have looked really prepared and professional, Michelin would have ended up looking very magnaminous and the fans would have been able to watch a (non?) points scoring race.

 

There are (currently) two tyre suppliers in F1 and each team has a contract with one of them (and not the other) to supply tyres for the season. There is no question of any team being able to use the competitor's tyres for all sorts of commercial reasons, not to mention the technical issues with using tyres which have completely different characteristics to the ones your car is designed for.

The Michelin teams using BS tyres for a race would be like Man U only turning up with 6 players and asking if they could borrow 5 from the Chelsea bench. Not going to happen

Michael.

 

re: all teams using B'stone

Even if all the issues Michael has raised could have been overcome, I doubt Bridgestone would have been able to source enough tires in such a short timeframe.

Regards,

Stuart.

 

BMW and Sauber

Peter of that ilk was interviewed last night on Swiss TV, and I (perhaps incorrectly) had the impression of someone who was putting a brave face on things. It's probably only the wrench of departing from something you've built up.

I can only hope that the works stays at Hinwil (just down the railway line from me). However, having worked for German companies, and knowing how insufferably arrogant and superior some of them can be with regard to the Swiss (the old rivalry goes back for centuries), I don't have a good feeling.