- 15 Nov 07, 18:41#24494
Cast your minds back to the USGP of 2005.
Hard to forget the scene.....over two thirds of the field peeling off the track on the warm up laps leaving 6 cars to race in an insult to the fans that turned up to watch. All Bridgestone shod, the anything for a win philosophy in plain view for all to see.
The problem was that Michelin had brought the wrong tires, they underestimated the level of wear, causing several tire failures including Ralf Schumacher’s Toyota - it hit the wall coming out of turn 13. A crash that could have cost him his life, and one that could have been avoided by Bridgestone…..
The excess wear on the tires was caused by the newly laid surface at Indianapolis, this surface had been laid and ready for the Indy 500 race a couple of month before. The tarmac had been diamond cut for better grip. No teams had any testing on the track prior to the race, the F1 had to be set up for the F1 race. This involes much re-arrangement of the semi-permanent grandstands running down the pit land and up past turn one on the F1 track.
So basically Michelin had NO clue as to the abrasive qualities of the new diamond cut track and brought the completely wrong tire. At the same time Bridgestone brought perfect tires for the race. Bridgestone were lucky and Michelin unlucky…..or perhaps not!
The thing is that - although no F1 team had ANY testing time on the Indy F1 track prior to the race, Bridgestone did have a whole month of data to work from. The Indy 500 race is run for an entire month with a huge amount of practice, testing and qualifying and a HUGE amount of data gathered from the cars. And the cars were running…..wait for it….FIRESTONE tires. Every single INDY car runs the tires supplied by Bridgestone’s sister company and thus has access to hours and hours of testing data.
That testing data showed the highly abrasive and dangerous nature of the INDY track. Bridgestone kept that information to themselves and turned up the 2005 USGP with very hard compound tires that were able to cope with the dangerous surface. But in order to secure their only win that year, Bridgestone kept the dangerous nature of the track hidden from Michelin. It is apparent that Bridgestone put a win as a higher priority than driver safety.
Corporate scum mentality at it’s worst.
Of course some will say that they were not at liberty to divulge the hazardous nature of the INDY track, but I would say they were morally obliged to do so.
Hard to forget the scene.....over two thirds of the field peeling off the track on the warm up laps leaving 6 cars to race in an insult to the fans that turned up to watch. All Bridgestone shod, the anything for a win philosophy in plain view for all to see.
The problem was that Michelin had brought the wrong tires, they underestimated the level of wear, causing several tire failures including Ralf Schumacher’s Toyota - it hit the wall coming out of turn 13. A crash that could have cost him his life, and one that could have been avoided by Bridgestone…..
The excess wear on the tires was caused by the newly laid surface at Indianapolis, this surface had been laid and ready for the Indy 500 race a couple of month before. The tarmac had been diamond cut for better grip. No teams had any testing on the track prior to the race, the F1 had to be set up for the F1 race. This involes much re-arrangement of the semi-permanent grandstands running down the pit land and up past turn one on the F1 track.
So basically Michelin had NO clue as to the abrasive qualities of the new diamond cut track and brought the completely wrong tire. At the same time Bridgestone brought perfect tires for the race. Bridgestone were lucky and Michelin unlucky…..or perhaps not!
The thing is that - although no F1 team had ANY testing time on the Indy F1 track prior to the race, Bridgestone did have a whole month of data to work from. The Indy 500 race is run for an entire month with a huge amount of practice, testing and qualifying and a HUGE amount of data gathered from the cars. And the cars were running…..wait for it….FIRESTONE tires. Every single INDY car runs the tires supplied by Bridgestone’s sister company and thus has access to hours and hours of testing data.
That testing data showed the highly abrasive and dangerous nature of the INDY track. Bridgestone kept that information to themselves and turned up the 2005 USGP with very hard compound tires that were able to cope with the dangerous surface. But in order to secure their only win that year, Bridgestone kept the dangerous nature of the track hidden from Michelin. It is apparent that Bridgestone put a win as a higher priority than driver safety.
Corporate scum mentality at it’s worst.
Of course some will say that they were not at liberty to divulge the hazardous nature of the INDY track, but I would say they were morally obliged to do so.
