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F1 COLUMNS
Is April Fool's Late This Year?

What a total, utter and complete farce! There really isn't much to say about the US Grand Prix - how much can you say about six cars? What an absolute sham! This wasn't a race - it was a joke! This race will be remembered for one thing and one thing only - the fact that it was a complete embarrassment to the sport of motor racing.

It all started on Friday when, during free practice, Ralf Schumacher had a huge shunt into the wall coming off turn 13 - an almost exact replica of his accident last year. Ricardo Zonta, Toyota's third driver also had a bit of a nasty incident. So what caused the incidents? Michelin started investigations and asked all teams using their tyres to pump up the pressures.

The result was an unbalanced car for most teams. But this was the entrée of the mayhem that was still to come. Saturday's free practice saw very few Michelin-shod teams taking to the track and those that did cruised through the pit lane instead of risking going through turn 13. Nevertheless all the teams did manage to qualify with Jarno Trulli securing Toyota's first podium. So far so good…well sort of.

After qualifying the teams went into a meeting to decide the fortunes of the Michelin teams. Michelin wanted to fly in new tyres from France which they hoped would be able to withstand the pressures of 73 laps of the circuit but this would contravene at least five rules and rules are what F1 is all about.

Well that didn't go down too well with the FIA so Michelin managed to get nine teams to sign an agreement requesting that a chicane be constructed on turn 13 and Michelin would then allow their teams to compete. The team that didn’t sign were Ferrari (surprise, surprise) as they felt that it was the FIA's decision (fair enough). The FIA didn't want to come to this party and scrapped that idea. So what to do?

All twenty cars congregated on the grid and all twenty cars took off for the formation lap. When the five red lights went out to signify the start of the race there were only six cars competing - those on Bridgestone tyres. Michelin sent out a letter to all their teams pleading that they don't race as safety was a major concern.

Tests conducted on Michelin tyres from the various teams showed that eleven had failed the inspection - clearly a fundamental issue.

The crowd's natural response was to 'Boo' loudly as the six remaining cars tried to put on a bit of a show. Who can blame them - F1 tickets don't come cheap and once you start adding on hotel costs, transport, blah, blah, blah you end up with a pretty steep bill. If nothing else the public should be refunded their money or given prime tickets to next year's race - if there is even going to be a race held at Indy next year.

Surely there must have been a solution to this situation. You'd think that some of the brightest minds in the world (with some of the biggest egos in the world) would be able to come up with something - six year old kids on a playground would probably have been able to solve this little dilemma in less than 10 minutes. People came to watch a race and that is exactly what should have been given to them.

Put in the chicane but don't allow the Michelin teams to race for any points or only give away the points for 7th and 8th place. Declare the race non-championship but still allow the cars to show off a bit. Allow the Michelin boys to change tyres during pit stops with penalties. There were options - and lots of them. This was just a case of the FIA playing power games. Okay, so Michelin messed up big time and the Bridgestone runners should not have had to suffer but watching six cars coasting around the brickyard was just not acceptable.

Michelin are no doubt hanging their heads in shame and there will be severe repercussions for them. The teams have been apologising throughout the race. Silence from the FIA. There would have been no problem if Michelin had done their homework and brought out the correct tyres but why should the 120 000 people who bought tickets as well as the millions who tune into their TV's to watch the race be punished? Does it really matter who is to blame?

The bottom line is that between the FIA, Bernie Ecclestone and ten F1 teams a resolution could have been found. Time to grow up boys before you damage this sport straight into oblivion. Oh, and just in case anybody is wondering, Michael won the race, closely followed by Rubens, Monteiro in third, team-mate Karthikeyan trailing in 4th and the Minardi's of Albers and Friesacher finishing in 5th and 6th. But no one really cares about that, do they?