Well, What A Farce

As most of my friends will know, I am a huge Grand Prix fan. When I came to the US, I saw it as a great opportunity to go and see a real live race in the flesh, as tickets for the British Grand Prix are as rare as rocking horse sh#t. I duly bought my tickets for last weekends Indy GP, and promptly got all excited about it.

Two months of waiting, and much talking about the forthcoming excitement saw me fall foul of the GOS (God Of Smug for the uninitiated) in the most bizarre way imaginable. In a series of events, the blame for which I personally lay completely at the door of the Michelin tyre company, we only saw 6 of the 20 runners on the circuit, all wearing Bridgestone tyres.

There will be I am sure, many rumblings over the coming days as to who was to blame, and undoubtedly a lot of it will be deflected to the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone in a further attempt to split F1 into separate championships and to cover Michelin's rear end! When it comes right down to it, the Michelin shod teams took an opportunity to make a political statement in the name of safety, and as a result completely missed the point that, had Michelin, who have been in Grand Prix for a substantial number of years, done their job properly then there would have been no issue.

In doing so, the Michelin teams, who I am sure were largely bullied by Ron Dennis and Frank Williams, showed how little they actually care about the fans, some of whom had travelled much further than my 170 miles, including some Germans we met who had flown in for the event.

I won't go over the various articles here, but will leave you to make up your own minds. I have linked some of the key articles below if you are interested.

- The FIA's latest statement
- Correspondence between Michelin and Charlie Whiting (FIA Race Director)
- Further Correspondence between Michelin and Charlie Whiting
- A letter from the FIA to both tyre manufacturers last week
- The post race press conference (Michael has some interesting comments about Monza)
- Michelin's official statement
- Michelin really trying to cover their rear end, in the face of likely penalties
- ITV F1 Talkback, viewers and fans comments

Suffice to say, that I will be making as much noise as possible to Michelin and the Michelin team's management with a view to getting some sort of compensation for spoiling my dream day out. Having said that, Lorraine and I still had a very nice weekend. We set out for Lafayette on Saturday morning, arriving around 1pm (approx 3 hours), leaving us plenty of time to check the place out and do some shopping. Cotton/Linen shirts from Old Navy for $12.50 were the bargain of the day. Some time by the pool later, where we caught up with a couple of Indian guys who had come from New Jersey and North Carolina for the race, and also a bus load of Germans in town just for this weekend.

Next morning we set out really early for Speedway and arrived at just after 8am (approx 90 minutes). After some direction from IMS officials and some "discussion" with the Indiana State Troopers, we found the right parking lot. Despite some issues with the parking lot labelling and directions, I have to say that overall I think the IMS did a great job organising this event. We arrived in plenty of time to see the support races in Formula BMW and Porsche, but everyone was, of course, waiting for the main event.

The drivers came on the circuit in some vintage cars waving to the crowd and the excitement was building. Next (maybe an hour later) came the cars to form the grid. Each car and driver fully prepared, circulating from the pits to the grid, waving to the crowd, jinking around, etc. From that point on, I was on the edge of my seat, just waiting for the actual race, never mind the entertainment from the Commodores, the National Anthem, or the very cool 4 fighter flyby, all I was interested in was the 20 cars running at 19000rpm, 210mph down the main straightaway.

The time came at last and the cars left the grid for the parade/warm up lap, and everything still seemed normal at this point. All 20 cars left the grid, weaving around to warm up tyres, brake testing, etc, and then 14 of them pulled into the pits and some of them rolled straight into their garages. The race started with only 6 cars, both Ferraris, both Jordans and both Minardis. By this time of course, everyone figured something was wrong, but no-one really knew what and it was impossible to hear the PA system. People started to leave almost immediately when it became obvious that none of the cars in the pits would be rejoining the race.

People were of course frustrated and were booing the drivers on the circuit, which I have to say is a little unfair. Apparently they were also throwing beer cans and stuff on the circuit in the start/finish straight, which apart from being childish, was downright dangerous. TV cameras were in the stands capturing the audience mood and the PA system was appealing for calm. In case we need reminding, it is just a sport. We went to see the museum and some of the cool cars; took in an excellent video of the history of the circuit, and by the time we came out, the circuit was pretty empty.

After the race, although their job was undoubtedly made much easier by early departures, the IMS once again did a pretty good job in conjunction with the State Troopers to get people away from the circuit and out of the town, if only they had taken equally as much responsibility to get us to a major interstate their job would have been perfect, but they kinda abandoned us once we were out of the town centre, and I saw several of the same cars driving in circles trying to find the Interstate back up north!

Ultimately I still got to see and hear my F1 favourite Michael Schumacher driving full throttle, 19000rpm, 210mph on BRIDGESTONE tyres around one of the greatest circuits in the world, and I will of course be back next year, for hopefully a much more competitive event.

You can check out all the pictures here.