Formula farce

Today's American F1 Grand Prix proved to be a complete farce. I've never seen a race like it. Due to either a design flaw or the nature of the diamond-cut track (and quite possibly a combination of the two), cars with Michelin tyres experienced a considerable number of tyre failures during practice. This led to Michelin announcing on the Saturday that they couldn't guarantee the reliability of the tyres (and thus safety of the drivers) for more than about 10 - 15 laps. Not ideal for a 70+ lap race.

A compromise between all the teams should have been hammered out and sorted on Saturday evening, allowing the race to go ahead as normal, allowing the fans to have their race, but probably leading to Michelin runners to be penalised. What materialised was confusion up to the start of the race, where neither Ecclestone, nor Michelin, nor the teams would confirm what would happen. At the end of the formation lap all was revealed, as the Michelin running teams peeled off their cars in the pit lane and their respective garages, leaving just Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi cars on the circuit.

Stubborn, self-interested teams favouring commercial interests over the good of the sport prevailed, yet the American Grand Prix, and who knows, even F1 in the its current form, in the long term, may not. It's been a heavy price to pay. Millions of angry fans will surely be demanding answers, and by no means will they be alone. For what has been the most interesting F1 season for some time, this marks a particularly low point. It's all been a great mess, and the legacy of today's farce will be long remembered and felt throughout F1.