FIA Finds Michelin Shod Teams Guilty

Formula One’s governing body ruled in Paris today that the seven teams that boycotted the United States Grand Prix were guilty of failing to provide suitable tires and wrongfully refusing to allow their cars to start.

The FIA will not announce their punishments until September 14th and they could range from a reprimand to a ban, although the latter is not very likely as there are already too few teams in the sport. Other possible punishments could be fines or the loss of championship points.

The seven teams — BAR-Honda, McLaren-Mercedes, Red Bull, Renault, Sauber, Toyota and WilliamsBMW — withdrew from the race on June 19 after their tyre manufacturer, Michelin, said that its tires were unsafe for the Indianapolis circuit.

In a predictable joint statement, the teams said they were “very disappointed by the decision of the World Motor Sport Council to find them guilty” and that they would appeal. The teams said that they had “reasonably relied on Michelin, an approved FIA tire supplier” and so it wasn’t their fault if they were not given suitable tires.

The FIA cannot punish Michelin as there is no contract between them but they can apply pressure to the teams that they supply and they have already expressed a wish for there to be only a single tyre supplier in the future.

Posted: Wednesday, June 29th, 2005

Michelin Offers Refund Over U.S. Grand Prix Fiasco

Michelin has offered to refund the ticket price to all of the fans who attended the U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis. There are few other details at this time but it is expected that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will administer the refunds.

Michelin also said they would buy 20,000 tickets for the 2006 race to be given to those who attended this year’s race during which the 14 Michelin runners retired on the advice of their tyre supplier. It remains to be seen how these tickets will be distributed as there were approximately 100,000 fans at the race this year.

These refunds to those fans that attended the race are expected to cost the company around $12 million but the damage to their reputation with the millions of F1 fans around the world could be much more costly.

Posted: Tuesday, June 28th, 2005

BMW To Acquire Majority Interest in Sauber

Sauber and Credit Suisse are selling a majority interest in the Sauber Holding to BMW effective 1 January 2006. In 2006, the German manufacturer will enter a BMW managed team in the Formula One World Championship.

BMW is acquiring shares from Peter Sauber and will then take over the shares held by Credit Suisse by the end of 2008. Peter Sauber will continue to hold some of his shares and will assist BMW as an adviser, but he will withdraw from his operational responsibility.

This announcement confiirms the rumours that have been circulating for a while but it says nothing about William’s future plans once their current partner strikes out on their own.

Posted: Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005

Michael Schumacher Wins Ridiculous 2005 United States GP

At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that this year’s United States Grand Prix was a flashback to Ferrari’s glory days of seasons past… Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello led the race from start to 1-2 finish and their only serious challenge was from each other. At one point this challenge was a little too serious as Barrichello ran off the track while trying to retain his lead when Schumacher pulled out of pit lane slightly in front of him.

Looking further down the list of finishers you would be suprised to see that Tiago Monteiro finished third, scoring the first podium ever for a Portuguese driver and the first for Jordan in a long time. You would probably be astonished to see that his teammate Narain Karthikeyan was fourth and that the Minardi’s of Christijan Albers and Patrick Friesacher made up the top six finishers.

And that is where the story falls apart… the good news is that, for only the second time in the history of Formula 1, all the starters finished the race. The bad news is that only six cars started the race!

Following a heavy crash into the wall by Ralf Schumacher and a spin by Takuma Sato during qualifying Michelin decided that their tyres were not up to the stresses that the banked Indianapolis Turn 13 put on them and that it would not be safe to race.

Michelin asked for a chicane to be added to the corner to slow the field and the FIA refused saying that it would not be safe or fair to the other competitors to change the track at the last minute just to help those teams that had brought the wrong equipment.

Michelin asked if their teams could use some alternate tyres that they flew in from Paris and the FIA agreed but said that they might be subject to penalties for using more than one set of tyres. In the end it was a moot point as Michelin found the same problem in those tyres and withdrew them.

Half an hour before the start of the race no one was sure what was going to happen but then it looked like everything might be OK when all of the teams lined up on the starting grid. But after running their formation lap–aparently to fulfil their legal obligations to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway–all of the Michelin shod cars pulled straight into the pits and withdrew from the race leaving just the six cars using Bridgestone tyres to start the race.

Not surprisingly the fans at the track and around the world were dismayed by this farce and many left the track or switched off their TV’s rather than watch the Bridgestone tyre test which followed. Unfortunately, some of the less intelligent fans at Indy showed their displeasure by throwing bottles and cans onto the track and endangering the few drivers that were still competing but luckily no one was hurt as a result of this loutish behaviour.

The post-race podium ceremony was a subdued affair with fans booing Schumacher, Barrichello and, most of all, Formula 1 but at least Monteiro managed to celebrate a little and spill some champagne on his first F1 podium appearance.

American F1 fans, while relatively few in number, are a loyal bunch and so it remains to be seen how much long-term damage this will do to the sport but it certainly left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth at the time.

Complete GP of United States results.

Posted: Sunday, June 19th, 2005

Kimi Raikkonen Wins 2005 Canadian GP

Kimi Raikkonen returned to winning form today with a victory at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal. This is his third win in the last four races and could easily have been four in a row if his suspension hadn’t failed while he was leading the final lap of the European GP two weeks ago in Germany.

Juan-Pablo Montoya, his McLaren teammate, had his best race so far this season and was leading the race until pole-sitter Jenson Button slapped the so called “wall of champions”, breaking his BAR’s front suspension and bringing out the safety car. In the ensuing round of pit stops he left the pits while the red light at the end of pit lane was alight in his haste to beat the safety car and get back to the front of the field. A few minutes later he was black-flagged and his day was over.

Despite this it was a good day for McLaren as, for the first time this year, neither Renault even finished the race, let alone scored any points which allowed McLaren to close the gap to just 13 points in the Constructors’ championship.

As their top five finishes at the Nurburgring foretold, Ferrari continued to improve with Michael Schumacher second and Rubens Barrichello behind him in third. They may not win any championships this year but it may not be long before they start winning races again.

As we approach the half-way point of the season it looks like we are in for a treat as it has been many years since there were this many teams and drivers still in with a chance at the titles.

Complete GP of Canada results.

Posted: Sunday, June 12th, 2005