Schumacher wins race farce as 14 cars forced out
All seven of the teams supplied by Michelin, including championship front-runners Renault and McLaren, formed up on the grid, but were back in the pits at the end of the warm-up lap leaving Ferrari, Minardi and Jordan, all on Bridgestone tyres, in the field.
As big-screen televisions showed the drivers climbing out of their cars, fans at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway booed and threw objects toward the track.
More jeers greeted the award ceremony, where Ferrari topped the podium for the first time this year after Schumacher’s victory over teammate Rubens Barrichello and Jordan’s Tiago Monteiro.
“It’s not the right way to win my first one this year,” Germany’s seven-time world champion said.
Despite having the track virtually to themselves, Schumacher and his Brazilian teammate nearly collided as Schumacher returned from a pitstop on lap 51.
Brazil’s Barrichello was forced off the track and across the grass before resuming in second place.
Monteiro, in his first Formula One season, claimed his first podium place.
But the race will be remembered more for who wasn’t there, a fiasco that dismayed Red Bull driver David Coulthard of Scotland.
“This is going to leave a long-lasting and bitter taste in the mouth, but as drivers we had to follow instructions from those above us,” he said.
“It is quite remarkable that in the interests of the sport we weren’t able to find a solution.
“We have upset the viewers and the spectators,” he said.
Renault chief Flavio Briatore said they had wanted to race even if they had used new tyres and had to forfeit points under FIA rules.
“We don’t care if Ferrari would have got the points, we just wanted to race for the fans and spectators.
“I am sorry for them and the viewers round the world, but when you have a broken suspension you can call the car in and fix it in the garage but this was far more serious with the tyres as there was a problem with Michelin.”
Paul Stoddart chief of Minardi said he hadn’t wanted to race either, but with Jordan going out onto the track he had felt obliged to.
“This is not a race, this is a farce,” he said.
The mass defection capped a morning of confusion that saw the International Automobile Federation (FIA) veto the suggestion of introducing a temporary chicane before the final turn at Indy as “out of the question.”
Even so, Michelin and its teams continued to press for the addition of a chicane to slow cars heading into the banked turn, where a left rear tyre deflation led to a spin and crash for Toyota driver Ralf Schumacher on Friday.
Schumacher’s teammate Ricardo Zonta also suffered a left rear tyre deflation in practice, and despite the fact that Toyota’s Jarno Trulli claimed pole position on the same Michelin tyres, the manufacturers said they couldn’t vouch for their safety over the course of the entire race.
“As a result we reached the conclusion that we will not compete with these tyres in the current configuration of the circuit,” Michelin motorsport executives said in a letter to FIA Formula One race director Charlie Whiting.
Whiting said it was up to Michelin and the teams it supplied to sort out their own problems, either instructing their drivers to slow down, or using new tyres brought in by Michelin and accepting a penalty for breaching the rule that requires the same tyres to be used in qualifying and the race.
Feverish meetings saw the teams still demanding a chicane less than an hour before the race, and just who would or wouldn’t take part was in doubt until the start.
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