Tire maker Michelin has fallen on its sword and has admitted that the tires they brought to the United States Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this year were less than adequate for the job. Perhaps the largest and most expensive mea culpa in corporate sports history, Michelin has promised to buy back the tickets of fans and give away 20,000 tickets for nest year's race. Fans this year and were disappointed that 14 out of 20 cars chose to withdraw from the race just before it began rather than risk disastrous failure of their Michelin tires.
Michelin took a gamble with the tires that they provided to the seven teams who regularly use their tires. But to understand the gamble, you have to understand the current rules of Formula 1. This season F1 teams are severely limited in the number of tire sets they can use during a race weekend and changing tires during a race is harshly penalized. Additionally, teams are allowed only one warm up lap and one qualification lap to determine race grid position at the start of the race.
The one lap of qualification rule puts an emphasis on tires that warm up quickly for optimum grip during the single timed lap. But the qualification tires are also the race tires so they must be able to endure an entire race.
Tire maker Michelin is locked in a very competitive battle with the other F1 tire supplier, Bridgestone and both manufacturers look for every tiny advantage over their rival. Michelin made the gamble that tires with a relatively thin side wall would heat up quickly for qualification, but would be sturdy enough to withstand the unique stress that Indy puts on F1 cars with its high speed, banked final corner.
The gamble worked in one sense, because the Michelin-equipped Toyota team managed to win their first ever pole position for the start of the race. But they also lost the gamble because the Toyota team suffered a pair of scary tire failures in that high speed turn during practice. Investigation led the Michelin equipped teams to conclude that their tires may not be safe under the current rules and they asked for a waver of the tire rules or a change in the track configuration to reduce speeds.
The FIA told the Michelin-equipped teams that no changes will be made and that they should just drive slower if they felt the tires could not endure high speeds. In a show of solidarity, the Michelin teams unanimously shoes to withdraw before the race began. That left only six Bridgestone-equipped cars, two each from Ferrari and also-ran teams Jordan and Minardi to "contest" the event.
Michelin has admitted their error in and has offered to refund all tickets for those in attendance at the Indy race and they have pledged to buy 20,000 tickets for fans at next year's USGP.
While this is a nice gesture on Michelin's part, the jury is still out on whether Formula 1 can recover from the disastrous non-race that this year's United State Grand Prix turned out to be.