Formula None

What a travesty. Farcical... that's a good word.

My parents and I were three of the 150,000 watching. Dad buys tickets for the family every year. We had read online stories about the tire problems; BBC had covered some of the controversy (something the US news outlets missed or downplayed). There were also fans around us discussing the possibility of a cancellation. But even so, we were fairly certain that the race was a go. Otherwise, why bring in all these fans?

When the cars lined up and took the parade lap, we were all quite pumped, ready for the start. But as the lap completed, we watched the giant video screens to see the 14 cars pulling into the garage. At least among the fans in our section, it was pretty clear what that meant. Even so, nobody had truly expected things to come to this. Shock was followed by anger. We ended up staying until the 40th lap or so, but that really was only because we were stunned.

It was bad enough for us, who live in the area. (My brother's family didn't make the trip from Fairfax, thankfully.) But I can't imagine the reaction of fans who traveled to Indy. As a rough guess, I would estimate that 60+% of the fans traveled more than an hour to get here... and maybe 25% were from out of the country. How would I react if I'd come from Brazil or Italy? I'm surprised that there weren't riots.

So, who to blame. Sounds like the official F1 line is to pin it on Michelin, for failing to bring quality tires to the track. That's certainly part of it. A bigger issue though is the stupid F1 rule that mandates one set of tires for the whole weekend -- qualifying and race. This just floors me. This rule change is directly focused at lowering safety, rather than raising it. Changing tires is such an integral part of racing... and yet this race was killed because teams couldn't change tires.

The F1 leadership (Max Mosley, Bernie Eccelstone, I'm looking at you!) are also responsible because they couldn't figure a path out of this mess. The chicane option would have addressed the issue. F1 could also have allowed the Michelin teams to change tires, penalizing them perhaps with starting grid places (putting Ferarri, Jordan, and Menardi to the front) or by docking points from the drivers and teams that changed tires.

This was such a solvable problem. For all the reputed draconian authority wielded by FIA and F1, they stood aside and let the race die. Michelin carries blame too; they knew what their tires had to do and they couldn't make it happen. But in the end, F1 bears the lions' share of the blame.

So, what next? It remains to be seen. The local media are making some noise about ticket refunds, though I'd be shocked if that happened. The bigger questions are, will there be a USGP in Indy next year? And... will anyone come?