What the Fuck Happened at Indy?!?!?

I had an autocross yesterday (got beaten like a drum, too, but now is not the time . . .). As often happens, a lot of racing took place while we were racing and lots of us avoided any news of the United States Grand Prix in order to enjoy watching the race on tape that night. About midway through the day, one of my friends came into the timing trailer (I run the timing system in our region most of the time) and said that the race was one of the weirdest F1 races ever.

I knew about the situation with Michelin tires from watching qualifying on Saturday. And I had seen the story on the BBC website that broached the idea of a boycott by the 7 Michelin-shod teams over the safety of their tires. But, given the Machivellian political world that is F1, I expected it all to be sorted out by the time tens of thousand of fans, paying upwards of $85 a pop for the privilege, filed into IMS to watch the race.

I certainly had no idea that I would watch a "race" with a robust six cars taking place. It was a dark day for F1. The fans were understandably angry, although tossing junk onto the track was a classless and dangerous move that I last remember taking place at a NASCAR race - who says the NASCAR fans are that different from F1 fans?

In the wake of this farce, who is the blame and what happens next?

For my money, blame for the whole situation lies squarely at the feet of Michelin. Ironically, the day started out brilliantly for the French company, as their tires swept all four categories at the 24 Hours of LeMans. But they simply failed to do the job at Indy. There are numerous theories as to why, but I think that they tried to develop a tire that was quicker through the slow infield section of the IMS circuit at the expense of sidewall rigidity on the high-speed turn 13 (turn 1 of the IRL/NASCAR oval). The result was a tire that ended up not being capable of running the high-Gs in that corner over more about 10 laps.

While the blame for the weekend lies with Michelin (had they not fucked up there would be no problem), many are trying to figure out who has blood on their hands for the actual farce of a race yesterday. In the end, I can't think that anybody really does. I've thought hard about what was done and what could possibly have been done and I just can't come up with a better scenario than what actually took place.

What could have been done? Well, first, the possibility of letting the Michelin runners switch tires and run a new compound that was flown in from France is a moot point. Whatever flaw the Michelin tires that started the weekend had, the new tires had the same flaw. Therefore, some sort of tire-switch-with-penalty scenario simply wasn't possible.

How about FIA's suggestion, to tell the Michelin runners to simply driver slower through turn 13 in order to reduce loads on the tires? With all due respect, that's horseshit. F1 is a contest of SPEED. Unlike endurance racing like LeMans, where slower but more reliable cars routinely win out over faster but more fragile competitors (see LMP1 and GT1 this year), F1 is about the fastest driver in the fastest car winning the race. An event where six cars honked throughout turn 13 at full chat while 14 others puttered through considerably slower (20 mph? 40 mph?) would have been as great a farce as what actually took place. And that doesn't even take into consideration how you would enforce the "speed limit" or how long it would take for the racer's mindset to take hold and the Michelin guys try to run at full song.

So, then, what about Michelin's suggestion that a chicane be installed before (or in) turn 13 to slow the cars down? That's an equally bullshit suggestion. How, exactly, did they plan to alter the circuit? It's not as if there's a lot of room on the Indy oval to weave cars around. And what of the fact that there would be absolutely no practice on such a circuit before the race started. You think turn one at Monaco or La Source is a bitch on the first lap, what about that? And what of the Bridgestone teams, who did nothing wrong but are all of a sudden punished by not running on the circuit for which their equipment was designed and setup.

Neither solution was workable. There was a lot of talk about making one change or the other and making the race a non-championship event for which no points would be awarded. Again, that would be grossly unfair to Ferrari, Jordan, and Minardi - all they did was show up and race. Simply awarding points to those teams without a race (based on qualifying, for example) would have been unfair to Jordan and Minardi, who almost realized their dreams when Schumacher and Barrichello nearly took each other out. And besides, how hard would any team have been willing to push it for a non-points event? The F1 circus is in the middle of the meat of the season now and any injury to a driver would destroy his championship chances.

What happens next? A damn good question. Some are speculating that not only is F1 done at Indy or the United States, but potentially altogether. This column from the BBC explains how what happened yesterday was public result of the private power struggle that's going on for control of the sport. Of course, it also comes hot on the heals of Max Mosley's radical proposals to cut costs and put drivers back in control of the cars in 2008.

No doubt, it was a shitty situation. And no doubt, there will be long-term consequences. I'm just not sure it could have been any better.