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'That' Formula 1 Race


Tony
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This was sent to me yesterday. It turned up on some sports forum. Definitely makes you think....

One for the conspiracy theorists?

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I have a little (not much but a little) sympathy with the authorities over the Indianapolis race.

I felt that the 'outrage' of the commentators was vastly overdone, almost it seemed because if they were to be denied a race to waffle on about they were going out of their way to mislead people.

I wondered whether the real culprits were actually going free while the blame was poured on those who probably wouldn't sue.

The problem seems to be that Michelin's tyres couldn't take the heat generated by the surface at Indianapolis. The surface has radically changed because it was resurfaced and the Indianapolis cars found the new surface to be more slippery than they wanted. (Not for them the solution of driving slower then). So they grooved the road surface so that it's actually like driving on a giant file.

At the same time no-one seems to be allowed to test on the track except the Nascar and Indy cars, particularly not the F1 teams and presumably that excludes the Michelin tyre team.

The Nascar and Indy cars are all shod with Firestone tyres. The tyres and the information gained from them are all the property of Firestone. It was hinted that these cars had had trouble with the new track but the problems had been resolved by new construction tyres from Firestone. So effectively that prevents Michelin from renting and testing a 'legally shod' car and getting tyre information that way.

At the same time there is a political fight that Formula 1 should have a single tyre manufacturer in the interest of 'standardised' racing rather than having possible tyre improvements. Obviously to be the tyre manufacturer for Formula 1 would be a commercial coup.

To me it seems possible that Firestone kept quiet about the effect of the track on tyre construction entirely to wrongfoot Michelin. Michelin was left with extrapolating from past years of data and happily for Firestone drew entirely the wrong conclusions.

Happily for Firestone? Well, it appears that Bridgestone owns Firestone and quite possibly have won the exclusive right to provide tyres to Formula 1 in future through this one race. Neat trick, don't you think?

Tony

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Well Oswald's lad could not fall out with Ferrari, because they are his number one bedfellow on the matter of the 2008 proposed split. So he had to "side" with Bridgestone.

What fascinates me is why, when there is so much money pumped into F1, by car manufacturers and particularly sponsers, people expect it all to be run "fairly", when these sources of its funds are all the time just one jump ahead of the taxman and the law.

I am also puzzled how these people get away with having so much money swilling around in their companies that they can afford to spend millions on "advertising". Do the public realise that they are paying for F1 through "overcharging" on products and services?

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