The Race That Wasn't
It's Sunday 19th June. I sit down in front of the TV in order to watch the United States Grand Prix whilst I eat my dinner. There's nothing wrong with that now, is there? Well, so long as it's a trace you're watching, that's true. Except this 'race' only had 6 cars in it, and four of those were never going to be in with a shout of the win.
The problem arose when Ralf Schumacher crashed on Friday. It happens in motor racing - quite frequently when you're Ralf Schumacher. For once, however, it wasn't his fault. No, this crash was caused by inadequate Michelin tyres that appear to automatically self-destruct half way round corners. Very clever. It would almost be genius if the survival of tyres wasn't quite so imperative to finishing races, but let's no worry about that, eh?
Anyway, even though Michelin's self-destructing tyres were entirely their own fault, the company decided to hound the FIA and threatened to to pull out of the Grand Prix unless a chicane was installed at the corner where the tyres were exploding. The FIA stood up to them, and rightly so. The resulting race was a farce, but it wasn't the FIA's fault. It was Michelin's. Fans didn't like this, for obvious reasons. The Michelin man must be rather deflated today.
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