Michelin F1 Tire problems at Indy today. What happened?

qcwang · 06-19-2005, 02:31 PM

Was watching Speed channel in anticipation for F1 in the US. Controversy with the tires for the Michelin teams.

Anyone know how their tires are different that they coudn't take turn 13?

Bad PR for all involved with F1 to try and gain popularity in US.

bell · bell's Garage

mich's problems were not immediately known......even after they sent them back to HQ for inspection....they just knew they wouldn't be safe to run.....
watch for some type of press release this week on why they failed.

unfortunately (or fortunately) my dvr crashes when the ferraris aproach the grid......so i didn't see a damn thing after that, exept for 10 at the end of the program when they're recapping.

could've been as simple as adding a chicane......but that's politics.

trj911 · trj911's Garage

They didn't do enough testing to see which tires worked best on the track. They simply didn't do their homework and Bridgestone did. And we the fans, who attended the "race" got screwed.

qcwang · 06-19-2005, 08:24 PM

trj911 and others who attended,

Did people in the stands know what was going on? On Speed channel, they showed fans turning their thumbs down and one of the race cars drove over a water bottle thrown out on the course. What was it like there?

Besides it being Father's Day, I was really looking forward to the race. I don't know too much about F1 and was hoping to use it as a springboard to learn more since it was on at a good time instead of the middle of the night since most races are in Europe (I guess the fans in Europe then didn't miss anything, unless they stayed up to watch!).

Wow, it is hard for me to believe that a big company like Michelin wasn't prepared. It's not as if they never had their tires race at Indy before. The course I know is laid out different than for the Indy 500, but still with a big market like the US, I would have felt that anyone involved at any level would have been prepared better.

I'm interested in hearing from an engineering/techincal standpoint on what was different in these tires that was bad.

trj911 · trj911's Garage

I was able to find out what was going to happen because works for Michelin and he told us what they might do. Then we heard from others that SPEED reported the Michelin cars would not race. What a joke!