Funnily enough, my wife and I found the race more interesting to watch than some of the other processions this year. At least there was plenty more to talk about during the race than the usual X leads Y by 30 seconds.
Firstly, despite all the spin from everyone I think judging by the various forums around that most people believe that the fault is clearly Michelin's. They are allowed to bring two tyres to each race, to arrive without a single working option in a multi million dollar global operation is pretty amazing negligence on their parts. The track is in wide use for motor sport, F1 has raced there before and in these days of computer simulations they have extensive ability to model and test data without physically going to a track even. They obviously were super aggresive on compound choices seeking the absolute 10/10ths of performance and this time got caught out. They have been borderline on a few other races this year with tire survivability but have been happy to take the points over the clearly more conservative Bridgetone.
I've seen plenty of races over the years with less than 8 finishers due to mechancial failures or driver errors, that's just the way it is if you want to race at the absolute maximum of mechancial durability. Nobody in those races complained that it was unfair their engine, gearbox, electronics, hydraulics etc. failed. That's just part of racing. This was just more unusual because of the number of people affected by the same part. The closest I can remember is when they had the batch of faulty fuel rigs supplied and a number of teams suffered multiple minute penatlies due to refulling problems. Nobody pulled out of those races, again it was just part of racing.
The biggest dissapointment for me was the level of childish whining by the teams affected and the silliness of some of the potential compromises offered.
1) Build new track sections ? No way in the world FIA was going to enterain teams asking for track redesign on Saturday based on testing because one component of some teams wasn't up to the task of performing well. Where does that end ? hmm.. my aero package isn't working well here so I demand a new corner ?
2) Race for no points ? Talk about a farce, have 14 non-competing cars circulating with 6 racers ? With the 2 race engine rules etc. why would I even seriously run my engine at anything like race pace in a race where I couldn't win.
Bottom line is that the Michelin cars arrived at a F1 with a mechanical package that wasn't capable of the performance required. Sucks to be them but it's not going to be the last time a team gets it wrong and doesn't have a competitive package. That the Michelin teams would rather toss the toys out of the cot and not compete at all shows how little they really value their fans.
The solution was offered, Michelin teams you are going to have to run slower in turn 13 because your chosen race equipment package on this day isn't capable of faster speeds. Because of this you definately are not going to win, but there will be points on offer (7th and 8th.. hey those 3 points could well be the decider at the end of the season, just ask Kimi how many he lost the championship by last time around ). This isn't any different than other cars in different conditions be it the heat in Bahrain or whatever, having to make decisions about car setup to ensure their cars last the distance.
That is the thing that astounds me, there were points on offer at least 3 and potentially more as who knows perhaps a slow McLaren would still be faster than a Minardi and yet they chose not to start, hell all they would have to have done is to do one lap, pit, sit in the pits for 68 laps and then do another lap to have gotten the points. The real question you have to ask is why didn't those teams want the points ?
It is clear that there is way more politics going on here between the manufacturers, Bernie, FIA, etc. and that this was a 'convinient' issue for the teams to take Bernie on (hey did you know that they are in the process of working on the TV rights package for F1 at the moment.. and one debating point is how much the teams get versus Bernie)... The teams clearly were trying to show a unified message that they are more powerful than Bernie and they they will shut down a GP if they don't get their way. Bernie and the FIA clearly are out to show that that isn't the case.
This was just the opening salvo in the lead up to the new Concord Agreement, the new TV rights package, the F1 v. GWPC stoush and all the rest. Both sides clearly believed the other would blink and claimed to be surprised at the end that nobody did.
More importantly it was clear that the Michelin group placed themselves above the good of the sport for all their talk of 'doing it for the fans' as they were offered a chance to race (be it slower or with multiple pit stops) and they could have won championship points (surely better than their we were prepared to race for no points offer).
