It would have been the most boring race ever in F1 history. Result would be the same as MS and RB won.... Here what would happen.....Michelin knew that they got thin tires on their cars, so they would tell the drivers to slow down. So their drivers would slow down and move left or away from racing line and let faster cars with Bridgestone tires to pass or they try to block but faster cars would pass anyway. And they will keep doing that and let these six cars passed till finished.... fan would be upset anyway but for the different reasons. I believed Michelin knew that if they continued with the race that would happen and no way they could win. They might as well save their drivers life... IMO
No I think it would have been very exciting. The Michelin runners would have had to make several pit stops to change tires. They would have been entitled to since they were unsafe. There would have been alot of passing from guys pushing old tires that were going to be replaced anyways. Just my opinion.
If they changed tire, they would face penalty which they would loose at the end anyway. Why raced at all? risking the driver's life for the fun of the sport???. I think they know they got thin tires. If they went ahead with the race they would loose any how weather they changed tires or not. So, they find a way to pull out by using the 13 turn as an excuse to get out of racing. They knew FIA would not have gone ahead with the idea. All and all they saved their drivers's life... trust me if they went ahead one of the drivers would run into the wall... believe me we don't want that. It took me monthes to really sink in that Senna was really dead then...
Then you are saying that there should be NO racing. Every time a racer goes on the track they take the chance that they may die. It may not be the tires but maybe the brakes or the steering column. What ever... Their is always that chance. The engineers could have set up the cars to save wear on the tires. The teams should have control of their drivers. If it is unsafe to drive through turn 13 at speed then it is unsafe to drive through with a change. This was just wrong by the tire manufacture, the teams and everyone who is trying to say that it was unsafe. RACING IS UNSAFE - This is a fact.
Agreed. 14 cars running 25 or 50 mph slower in the turn 13 area would not be easy to pass. They would continue racing speed everywhere else on the track and the Bridgestone cars already couldn't match that pace. In fact, if the Michelin shod cars ran slower in 13 they could very well have BETTER tires later in the race and really pose a threat. I couldn't disagree more with those who think it would have been a Bridgestone cake walk.
there was simply no satisfactory outcome possible, even if the other cars took to the track, we were not going to get the GP we all wanted. Thanks Michelin and thanks FIA
The cars on Bridgestone tires had a distinct advantage Races are often lost simply due to the 15-20 seconds it takes to enter the pits, change the tires, than exit the pits. The Michelin shod teams woul have to do this even more than usual due to safety considerations. The only way Ferrari could have possibly lost is if the cars blew up, the chicane was actually installed, or if there was no penalty for changing tires after qualifying...and even if these changes were made, it is still highly likely Ferrari would have won.
Yea, there is always that chance. But the odds of a failure changed in this case. Say that in Monaco, the chance of a catastrophic failure is less than 1%. Fast foward to the USGP and the risk of failure is 90% ANYWHERE! A "chance" isn't an on off switch. It varies all the time. As I said in another thread, if I give you a race car that I tell you there is a 99.99999999% chance you will crash and die in and you can do nothing about it, will you race it? You're a racer, you take chances, right? Some of the team bosses said they would've had to go 150 kmph slower through turn 13 (~90mph, which is about 1/2 of what the Bridgestone guys do in that turn). Do you think that if 14 cars are going 90mph in that turn, some of the guys will push the limit some more because it's very tempting to pass someone? I think that we would've seen drivers pushing a little bit more than they should've and blow a tire.
Not to race was the best decision IMHO. What else could they do? If they decided to race and a tire failed and a driver died the same people who are now complaining that they didn't race would be saying "...I can't believe those teams let their drivers drive...all they care about is money...they care nothing about their drivers..."
The FIA offered to monitor speed, I don't see why that wouldn't work. Somebody goes over the set limit, on the next lap he gets a drive through. Alternatively they could have been told to stay on the apron. If you put a wheel over the line, it could have been dealt with the same as crossing the line while exiting the pit lane.
The driver has to monitor speed every lap of every race anyway. Each part in an F1 car has a limit, usually the limit is much higher and the failure less catastrophic, but it is obvious from Kimi's accident a couple race ago that on any given day an F1 driver can push his car too hard. It happens all the time. A team reduces revs because they don't know if the engine can last the race, or a driver starts braking earlier so that his brakes don't disintegrate. In this case the tires had a much lower performance level. Michelin stated that they would run under a chicane or monitored speeds. Like in any race they should have run at the speed their cars could manage and let the bridgestones run at the pace they could manage. I wouldn't go as far as to put specific blame on any particular party. I mean you can blame michelin, but perhaps one of their suppliers sent a slightly faulty part. And perhaps that supplier got a slightly unpure shipment of some material. I personally don't care about what happened to the race in any significant way. I mean I was sad to miss what might have been an awesome race, but some of the announcers were a little nuts. Saddest thing they have ever seen? Hardest thing a driver has ever had to do? It sucked, but for most people it probably doesn't even come close. In the end I feel that as long as the michelin runners were willing to run slower through the corner then they should have. There was absolutely no reason to penalize bridgestone runners. If the michelin shod cars weren't willing to run at all it would be a different story, but they were. If Ferrari showed up at the next race with an engine that could only do 10,000 rpm they couldn't ask everyone else to reduce their revs because if the Ferraris tried to go as fast as everyone else they would blow up.
They could of raced and they could have gone the distance!!! Look at the practice charts The drivers put in well over 10 laps on the tires and the only team to have a true failure was Toyota. Michelin wanted the rules change to cater them. Not to sugar coat the issue Indy is hard on tires even with the harder compounds there was still a lot of rubber being torn off of them I will try and post some pictures where i have shots of marbles flying off of the tires durring the race.
I still don't get it. Will you speed your ferrari to 280 km/h or 320 when you know your got thin tires... I mean thin no grooves?? So, what is the save speed to speed up your Ferrari with very thin tires,,, slow down to 200 or 180 or don't speed at all till you change tire... F1 tires are much softer than normal tires. Each corners the tires gone through heavy breaking and maximun accelerating. And at the same corner, same driver, tires may wear differently, you don't know regardless of set up. You can not predict which lap the tires are going to blow. You know what lap an over heating engine going to blow or what lap your car will not run after certain amount of gas. Last sunday, each teams that used Michelin could very well went ahead and race by accepting penalty and changed tires even on lap one. But all went along with Michelin. Michelin doesn't have that much power to control all teams that used their tires, you know... Each teams have their choice...
We never had the GP we all wanted since the domination of Ferrari these past five years... The reason that they introduced the tire rule, new qualify rule,... was to have F1 be more competitive sport, not domination... They are not very successful doing that. They are either trying to save the fans to stay with F1 by making the sport more exciting or making it exciting but unsafe.... Trust me, FIA is so confued right now...
"Not very successful at doing that" (making F1 more competitive, reducing domination?) What F1 series have I been watching? Up until Montreal MS was small blip on the radar screen and Ferrari swasn't in contention for the Manufacturer's Championship. Not that the rules have caused this, Ferrari and Bridgestone can take all the credit for that.
