[Leica] Totally OT: What the HELL is F1 doing?

[rangefinder at screengang.com (Didier Ludwig)]

My opinion:

- The F1 industry has shot in his own legs.
- Maybe it's good because the F1 council is mad since years, pushing the 
whole thing too far with silly rules changing even during a season.

How it came:

The US-americans do not love the F1, they prefer Nascar, Indy and Cart 
series, drag strip races, stock car races, mud races, or whatever races. 
But not races where the pilot is just a remote-controlled robot and where 
the tank-stop and tire-change strategies are deciding a competition like in 
the F1.

The F1 industry wants to have more market in the US and has selected the 
famous Indianapolis track for it's US-race.

The Indianapolis track with it's slanted curves is strongly not conform to 
F1 specs (flat curves  only). Constructors and tire furnishers must make a 
very strong special effort to keep their stuff competitive for this 
particular track.

One of the two F1 tire furnishers, Michelin, did not use tires that were 
stable enough for this kind of curves, which made Schumacher-2 crash in the 
training.

Michelin would have had the suiting tires (at home), but couldn't let them 
fly in, because a (stupid) F1-rule says that the kind of tires used in the 
training must be used in the race too - no change allowed. Otherwise a 
disqualification could happen (something Ferrari would have suggested for 
sure).

The other tire furnisher, Bridgestone, and the loser of this season, 
Ferrari, have smelled a chance to win some points and have insisted that 
Michelin MUST race with the unsafe tires, something what Michelin and their 
users declined, and that's why they went out after the warm-up round (a 
total absence would have caused heavy fines as they are obligated to 
participate).

The negotiations went until a few minutes before the start, and the F1 
council around the almost senile Bernie Ecclestone was checkmated between 
it's own (partially bizarre) reglements and all the particular interests, 
which can be roughly split the Bridgestone and Michelin Group.

It's a strong guess from me, that Ferrari, dominator of the past seasons, 
has more influence at the F1 council than all other competitors together. 
This might explain the decision of the F1 council to start a race with 6 
cars.

May Schumacher-1 enjoy this (probably) last victory of his career. I never 
liked this rather unsympathic guy, and this win is typical for his 
far-too-egomanic mentality.

Didier




>I was astounded at the debacle in Indy when only 6 . . . SIX cars . . . 
>raced.
>I can't imagine anything worse for the US market.
>
>What the HELL was going on? Was this some deep political thing?
>Michelin with it's pants in a bundle? What?
>
>If this keeps happening Leica will actually sell the DMR and show a
>digital M! Apple changes to Intel and now THIS.
>
>Sheesh.
>Adam