On Father’s Day I was doing what I usually do on a spring time Sunday afternoon. I was watching the NASCAR race taking place at the Michigan superspeedway. This year, the tires supplied by Goodyear and used by all entrants are using a softer rubber compound. On this afternoon, these soft tires were not getting along with the track at all. The Michigan track is 2 miles around, giving most cars a 40 lap fuel window. This Sunday, the tires weren’t surviving more than about 30 laps before being worn to the threads, not a good thing!
Watching any NASCAR event, you hear a lot about tires, how they wear, how many to take, yadda, yadda, yadda. But never before had I heard of teams dropping out of the race because of tires, even before it began! This is indeed what happened at the U.S. Grand Prix this year. Seven teams refused to race citing concerns that Michelin raised over how its tires would fare on the Indianapolis track. As a result, only six teams raced (all with Bridgestone tires) and Michael Schumacher won the race. Now several fans are suing over it.
As a race fan, I can only see this as another reason I believe Formula One is in decline. I’ve watched the races in the past, but stopped because they simply weren’t as competitive as NASCAR or Indy Racing League. Last season, a single driver, Michael Schumacher won most of the races and of course there was the infamous "team orders" race in which a teammate who was winning the race, moved over to let Schumacher win! What happened to putting on a good show for the fans? Those teams that pulled out of the U.S. Grand Prix must have had other options than that. I don’t think you would ever see something like that happen in NASCAR because, for now at least, there appears to be a very conscious desire to put on the best show possible for the fans. They haven’t lost touch win the single reason modern sports exist in the first place, the fans! And as competitive as race car drivers are, it must have been a bitter pill to swallow for the seven drivers who didn’t get a chance to race at the U.S. Grand Prix.
I can only guess that the latest Formula One fiasco is just the surface layer of deeper problems. Those seven teams didn’t pull out just because of tires. Maybe they were trying to make a statement of another nature. Maybe they too would like to see a more competitive series where the team with the most money isn’t the one to win week in and week out. But I think it would have been better to settle these problems off of the track rather than leaving the fans hanging out to dry.
5 replies on “US Grand Prix 2005: Is Formula One Dying?”
You are dead on with your assessment. Formula one and its management have taken their fans on a ride and this time they really screwed it up. Being an F1 fan for nearly 5 years since it started in Indianapolis I can say that this has left a very bad feeling in me. I could not go to another race like this.
One of the differences between F1 and NASCAR is that in NASCAR the governing body (i.e. NASCAR) is the major political player, while in F1, the manufacturers, teams, and even tire suppliers have enough power to challenge the F1 governing body. The result is that even though NASCAR makes some boneheaded (and borderline unfair) decisions, they are also able to tightly control their product, which is why the races tend to be, on average, pretty good. Sunday’s US Grand Prix foul-up, on the other hand, came about because F1 did not have the power (or the will) to enforce a reasonable solution.
In my job I have to think about contingencies all the time. The FIA has long said that the US is a key market that they need and want to develop. They have a tough time due to the abundance of great racing we already have where the fans are valued. It seems to me that there is nobody in the FIA that looks at all the pieces and develops contingencies. The question I have is why did Michelin only bring one tire compound? The US market is allegedly important, but nobody developed any backup scenarios. I’ve been watching F1 since 1982 when Niki Lauda returned to the sport with McLaren. This is the biggest slap to a host site I can EVER recall
I ‘had’ been a formula one fan ever since I can remember. But this year in 2005, I stopped watching formula one. It’s no longer a race of driving skills. In my opinion, the new introduced rules are a complete joke. It’s ridiculous to see highly skilled drivers like Michael Schumacher look like crippled animals on the track due to these crazy new rules. FIA needs to get rid of some of these new rules for their own benefit.
[4] #4 you’re right I "used to love F1 even if shuey won ( perferably not every race ) but F1 is driver first car second?
now I just look at the difference between NASCAR and ( here in australia and NZ – where I come from ) and look at AVESCO.
http://www.v8supercar.com.au/
When the s### happend with the US F1 I changed channels.