Goodbye, Formula One.
Good riddance, Bernie Ecclestone.
Au revoire, Michelin.
Ciao, Ferrari.
What we witnessed Sunday (or in my case on TV
from Detroit, where I was supposed to cover Game 5 of the NBA Finals) was not
only a monumental disgrace to the sport and everybody involved in it, but it
should spell the end of the U.S. Grand Prix in Indianapolis. And, we're quite
sure, the United States.
Remember how F-1 boss Ecclestone complained
Friday that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway folks don't do a good enough job of
selling his race to local motor sports fans?
How would he propose to sell a race next season?
The United States Grand Prix: This time, we
think they'll show up!
Let me roll out the thesaurus.
It was a fiasco.
It was a debacle.
It was reprehensible.
Unless you're a lawyer, in which case, it's a
godsend.
As badly as I feel for the locals who got ripped
off, I feel worse for the thousands who spent even more money traveling from all
over the world. Some of these people made their summer vacation plans around
this race. Refunding the ticket price wouldn't come close to making this right
for our foreign visitors.
Simply stated, this race is done. Forget what any
contract might say about future events. The Formula One gang has lost all its
credibility with the American market, and has torn apart every relationship it
needed to make this thing succeed.
It was bad enough that F-1 came into Indianapolis
six years ago acting like they deserved to be treated like royalty. Drivers, who
could not be seen mixing with the hoi polloi, were completely unavailable to
fans. And F-1 officials generally treated everybody, including the local media,
like a mere nuisance.
It was bad enough three years ago when Ferrari
staged one of its "managed" finishes, with Michael Schumacher slowing down to
give teammate Rubens Barrichello the victory.
With Sunday's farce, though, F-1 wrote itself a
one-way ticket out of Indianapolis and, in all likelihood, the entire American
market.
Which raises the question: Can we help them pack?
The Grand Prix is (was) a nice, novel event, and
it brought an estimated $170 million into the local economy. For one weekend a
year, Indianapolis felt a little bit like an international city.
But F-1 is the rude houseguest who never brings
anything to the party and continues to wipe its muddy shoes on the new Persian
rug.
And to do it at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the
mecca of all motor sports, that's like playing handball against the Wailing
Wall.
They had no respect for the place, and, clearly,
no respect for the fans, many of whom stuck around until the bitter end. (And
for all the bad behavior, it could have been a lot, lot worse.)
Tell me, what was the purpose of having the
original 20 cars come out on the grid, only to have the 14 Michelin men exit
stage left?
To make a point?
To rub the fans' noses in it?
At one point during the Speed TV telecast, Derek
Daly asked that very question of Adrian Newey, the technical director for
McLaren Mercedes.
The response was, "Maybe to give them something
of a show."
Daly, you could tell, wanted to punch the guy in
the teeth.
Yeah, thanks for the show.
Now, of course, comes the time for apportioning
the blame, and the best way to begin is by telling you who isn't culpable in
this situation:
Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Tony George.
Naturally, people looking for a refund will gaze
toward 16th and Georgetown, but, tell me, what else could they have done? They
were more than willing to put a chicane on the 13th turn. How could they have
been expected to fix this?
I don't blame George and the Speedway folks for
refusing to be a part of the postrace victory celebration.
And I don't blame George and the Speedway for
releasing a statement that basically said: "Hey, you want your money back, here
are the addresses for Michelin and the FIA (Federation Internationale de
l'Automobile)."
No, if we're assigning culpability, it belongs to
a lot of other folks.
• To Ecclestone, who couldn't find a way to get
his own politically charged house in order. The buck stops with him.
• To Michelin, a company that just got so much
bad publicity, the Michelin Man was seen drowning his sorrows in a Downtown
Indianapolis pub. Speed TV's telecast, by the way, was sponsored by -- yep --
Michelin.
• To the FIA, which made any kind of compromise
virtually impossible by threatening to pull its sanction if a chicane was added.
It put politics ahead of the fans. Inexcusable.
• To Ferrari, the only team that was said to be
against the addition of a chicane, another decision that killed any hope of
saving this race. At one level, it wasn't their fault the Michelin teams were
unprepared, but again, it's supposed to be about delivering the product, even if
that means making a concession.
In the end, it was business as usual in big-time
racing, destroying any foothold F-1 might have gained on American soil.
"Quite frankly," Ecclestone said, "the fans got
cheated."
True enough.
The good news is, without any more of these
races, it can't happen again.
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