S2 E10: Inside the chaos of F1's Indianapolis 2005 farce

Say the words Indianapolis 2005 to any F1 fan and two images will probably come to mind. The shot of 14 cars pulling into the pits at the end of the formation lap and the remaining 6 lining up on the grid to take part in one of the most farcical events in F1 history. Since we started bringing back V10s, this infamous weekend has been our most requested episode topic by far, so for the final conventional episode of series 2, we're going to dissect the weekend in great detail. Joining me Glen Freeman to look back at Indy 2005 are two men who were there on the ground that weekend. First up, I'll introduce our very own Mark Hughes, who had the unfortunate task of having to write a race report about this at the time. So Mark, you know the drill with how we start these episodes with the opening question. Is it possible for you to narrow this down to one thing that comes to mind when you think of Indy 2005? Yes, for me it was standing at the top of the stands on my way to the commentary booths, which above those massive rows and rows of people, so the place is full of a couple of hundred thousand enthusiastic cheering fans who had made their way there for a special day out, some of them from a very long way away, and knowing that in a few minutes all these people were about to be betrayed, the Michelin cars weren't going to take the start, because that wasn't generally known to the fans in the stands at the time. And I was just feeling angry at how Max Muzzley, who he later learned was sitting in his back garden in England, being informed of events by phone, had no compunction about making all these paying fans, these fans of the sport, the casualties of this power play, and they had apparently played not part in these calculations about how this problem with the tyres was handled. I think that tells us a lot about how F1 was running itself at the time, but before we go any further and introduce our second and very special guest, can you quickly explain the fundamental reasons Michelin were caught out so badly in 2005 when they'd not had these problems in any of the years prior to this? Yes, two critical things had changed in 2005, both tweaks of the regulations. The minimum height from the ground of the front wing end plates had been raised, so that took them out of ground effect, making the downforce being generated by them much more inconsistent. The average vertical load on the left rear tyre through turn 13 was around 800 kilos, but that was just the average, and that turn took about six seconds, and with the higher front wing end plates, this was all later found when Michelin did the research after the event. I fully understand what had gone wrong here, and they found that the load swung massively between 41200 kilos during those six seconds, so with the previous wings operating in ground effect, and with a more powerful diffuser, the previous year, the error load was less sensitive changes in pressure or turbulence, but now the loads were very ingratally creating this aerodynamic bouncing, which the tyre had to absorb, but that was the first thing. The second was that tyre changes were banned for 2005, and you had to get through the race on a single set, which meant harder compounds and less grip, but Michelin with its radial construction and flexible sidewalls, which are a very different construction to the bridge stone, compensated for the lower grip of the harder compounds by building an even more sidewall flexibility, as this kept the tread more planted. And it was as those sidewalls flexed through the unique demands of that corner, which was like unlike any other on the calendar, and its combination of lateral and vertical force. Now with a much bountier ride, that caused the steel belt inside to detach itself from the sidewall causing the tyre to collapse. I'm delighted to welcome our second guest along at this stage, the current head of Audi Motorsport, and back in 2005 Toyota's chief race and test engineer, Dita Gas. Dita, welcome along, and thank you so much for taking the time to revisit this story with us. Yes, hello, and thank you for having me. I'm very much looking forward to that one. Yeah, yeah, strange weekend in Formula One, and we'll get straight into it. Usually we start these episodes off by talking about what else was going on in F1 at the time, but we all know we're here for one thing and one thing only today, and that's to cover as much ground as we can on a bizarre weekend in F1 history. The drama really began in second practice on Friday, when Ralph Schumacher had a big crash at the final banked corner for the second year running. Ralph's 2004 crash with Williams injured his back and forced him to miss six races, but the safer barriers at Indy were extended for 2005, and this time he was able to climb from the car unadded. The session carried on as normal, although Ricardo Zonta also spun off at turn five in Toyota's third car, and the other Toyota of Yano Trully only completed ten laps in the session while Zonta did six. He did say this was because of the accidents, although he and Zonta did go out again before the end of the session, but Zonta said he stopped again because of more tire concerns. So, data was already being reported at this point that the incidents for Ralph and Zonta were because of the tires, but how much did you know about how serious it could be at this stage in FP2? Well, at this point, obviously, we were completely, completely in the dark to be honest, because we saw the two tire problems on two of our cars, and I think in fairness, Ricardo was the first one to spin, and then we had Ralph's accident, but when Ricardo spun, obviously, we didn't have any further information in order to react on anything. So obviously, we started investigating immediately trying to understand what was going on together with Michelin, and we did some, let's say, set up changes to the cars in order to help the problem increase the tire pressures and the cambers at this stage, I think, normally in other situations with tire failures like that, you would be inclined to reduce the cambers, but in that particular case, it was quite visible from the beginning that the failure started on the outside shoulder, and this is why we increased the camber to help the tire because of the banking and the high loads on the tire. We went out again and experienced not a failure of the tire, but we saw damage, and this was the moment when we stopped running in FP2 and what I think you mentioned, Ricardo said that as well in an interview. Obviously, the whole discussion started off, and initially, we as Toyota, we were put a bit in the corner, basically, because it seemed that the problems only happened on the Toyota cars, and there were suggestions in the pedoc that we were not respecting the guidelines with cambers and persons on which obviously wasn't true. Yeah, that was a theme I noticed when I was researching this episode, a few teams just trying to pin it on Toyota, but Mark, you were obviously covering the weekend on site at Indy. Lots of drivers complained on the Friday about a lack of grip from the tires, but were there any murmurings in the rest of the paddock that this was developing into something more serious? No, not initially. I mean, the lack of grip was quite a normal thing you were hearing in the early stages of weekend that year, because this was the first year of the tire regulation where you had to get through the race on a single set of tires. So the compounds were generally much harder than they had been in previous years. So it was quite a typical thing to hear the drivers say on a Friday after practice, especially on a dusty track, that there was a general lack of grip. It was no clue that there was actually a tire problem as such until Ralph's accident. So as Deeta said, Ricardo had his spin first, which it was only later that that was attributed to the tire problem as well. So no, the first inkling that we got really that the outside world, or the people at the track got that there might be a Michelin tire problem was when Ralph had that accident. Ralph said afterwards that lightning isn't supposed to strike twice, and he did go to hospital for checks after complaining of pain in one of his eyes, which he believed could be because he'd got some dirt in there. But on Saturday morning, it was announced that Ralph wouldn't take part in the race. He said he felt 80% fit and was happy to drive, but the FIA took the decision out of his hands on safety grounds. Deeta, would you have been happy for Ralph to drive if he was 80% fit or did the FIA make the right decision here? Well, I think with a full benefit of hindsight that we have today, FIA, I think, took the right decision there. There was no point in taking any risk. He did state some problems with his eye view, so I think it was a various wise decision, because the accident was a heavy one, even though thanks to the safer barriers, it was not as bad as it potentially could have been. Yeah, and by the time of FP3 on Saturday morning, it becomes clear to the outside world that something more serious is going on. One Pablo Montoyer's McLaren and David Coolfars Red Bull were the only Michelin runners to set a lap time in the session. Pretty much every Michelin car does appear on track, but most of them are only doing out and in laps from and back to the pits. Teams were reported to have received advice from Michelin on setup changes that they need to make. to their cars and it was understood that only in the Montoya and DC crews got these done in time to complete any meaningful running and by meaningful running I mean four laps for Montoya who was still quickest and only seven laps for CoolFard. But data Yano was one of the drivers who did not appear at all I don't think in this session. At Toyota were you being extra cautious because of what had happened to you specifically on Friday? Partly yes I mean obviously we had a deep view into the problem and were cautious in that situation that for sure but the whole discussion which was going on with set up recommendations from Michelin and so on for sure was something which which quite often and we're going to see that later in the weekend as well happened very much last minute and those suggestions were one of them. So I wouldn't say that this was the only reason. Okay and Michelin released a statement on Saturday morning which said despite all the checks that we have done here and in our test facilities at Clermont for on we have not been able to understand or reproduce the problem of yesterday. We have explained the situation to our partners and to the FIA and we have advised on the conditions for tests qualifying and for the race tomorrow. These decisions have been taken in the interest of the safety of the drivers. Michelin identified another specification of tire that it believed would be able to withstand the loads through the banked final corner and it said it was actively pursuing getting those tires flown to Indy for later in the weekend. But that would need agreement from the FIA as teams are supposed to use one of the two nominated tire types from their suppliers that already brought to a race weekend. Mark when you saw this bizarre third practice session and then you get the statement from Michelin that basically says we don't know what's happening. What were you expecting to happen from that point? I was apparent from that point that there was a threat to the race going ahead because of the safety of the tires couldn't be guaranteed then obviously there was a possibility. But the feeling was still that a solution would be found and the different spec of tire was the Barcelona tire. That had been flown out before being much of an understanding of what the problem was and actually by the time those tires landed the base of the Barcelona tire was just a harder compound of the same tire. It was realised that the problem was within the construction and the harder compound wasn't going to change the situation it wasn't going to help. So yeah then the possibilities moved on to other possible solutions you know talk of chicans and stopgob penalties for the Michelin runners that sort of thing. But that point yes we were still assuming that some sort of solution was going to be made but it was already very clear that this wasn't going to be just a normal straightforward weekend. Now back in 2005 we also had a fourth practice session before qualifying and in this session all the Michelin runners were much more active. It was a Michelin 1 2 3 with Reikannins McLaren leading buttons B.A.R and Alonzo's Renault and Michael Schumacher was fourth quickest on bridge stones in his Ferrari half a second back. So data after this F.P. 4 session were you happier with the measures that the teams and Michelin had put in place or was this maybe a bit of a false reading that things would perhaps be okay? Well I would say at the end of the day it was a bit more like like a false reading at this stage because yes we did some some running in the session yes we made some modifications again with higher pressures and canvas which were two of them. We tried to reduce the load on the car by taking off down for us. I remember we were trimming off the flaps to reduce the down for us and then we struggled to get a balance weight distribution forward low fuel levels. So everything in order to reduce the load on the tire. So we were happy to do short runs like a qualifying run but at this stage we still didn't feel happy to do to have a tire which could effectively do the race. It was after this session that we get a bombshell from Renault team boss Flavio Breatori who puts out a statement saying that if Michelin was not given authorization to use the new tires being flown in Renault would not compete in the race. The statement added we fully support Michelin in this situation and in the efforts they are making to best resolve it. The safety of our drivers remains our number one priority. So this was the first public suggestion that we might not get a race or we might get cars pulling out. Data did you know ahead of time that Renault were going to make that statement? I wasn't aware of that to be honest I mean we had plenty of discussions back at Michelin's office with team principles and chief engineers about trying to find a way how to potentially race but this particular one I need to admit I don't remember having seen that before. Mark you obviously said that it was already an inkling from FP3 that the weekend might be in trouble. When you saw this statement from Flavio did you think this was a legitimate threat or just Flavio trying to make a bit of noise? No there was underlying there was a real threat. It was both a technical problem but it was being played out within a political backdrop so you had to sort of gauge one against the other but no there was a very very real threat that this was a very already very apparent that this was putting the whole race under threat that was already apparent both sides of the. Another meeting took place between the teams in Michelin before qualifying and at this stage Michelin said it still hadn't revealed any useful findings from its investigations but it was agreed that all teams would take part in qualifying while those were ongoing. There were mixed feelings among the Michelin teams at this point BAR for example had no problems despite a lot of mileage on Friday but their team boss Nick Frye said ultimately they would follow Michelin's advice. Red Bull's Christian Horner said he was prepared to take a calculated risk based on the information available but that a final decision would only be taken once there were more facts about what was going on. So Dita we know the cars are going to run in qualifying but as the team that was most affected in practice what was Toyota's position at this stage? Well the position this stage I remember John Howard as a team principal who was saying quite quite early on basically guys I think there's not going to be a race that that was the Toyota position at the time obviously we always participated in the discussions and trying to find a solution how to effectively do it but I clearly understood from John that his opinion was that the race wouldn't happen. And before qualifying Michelin's F1 program director Nick Shorick said if we have no further information on the product that we've got and why we had the failure yesterday we will propose to the teams not to go out and race. The final decision is with the teams but for as long as we can't put our finger on why we had the problem we had yesterday it would not be responsible of us to allow our drivers to go out and race. So qualifying does happen and Trilly takes to Toyota's first F1 pole position ahead of Rikinen, Button, Fissikella, Schumacher and Alonzo that should top six and these were the days of drivers qualifying on their race start fuel loads and there was plenty of speculation that Trilly might not have been carrying much fuel. So data I have to ask this because we need to know once and for all how much fuel was in Trilly's car for this qualifying session. Oh for sure I don't remember the exact number but I think it's a nice discussion that people are having and for sure I mentioned it before we did everything to reduce the load on the tires and such as well the fuel load. And did the fact that Toyota weren't expecting a race influence the chosen fuel load at all? Potentially yes that may have contributed to that. The drivers had plenty to say after qualifying and there was a real mix of views at this point. Trilly said some decisions need to be taken and it is difficult to talk about the race because we don't feel 100% confident with our car. We'll come back to Rikinen in more detail later but he said he was not worried about the tires while championship leader Alonzo said everyone was worried but he hoped the measures that Michelin were recommending would solve the issue. Alonzo hinted that some teams ran the pressures really low and Rod Dennis was one of the team bosses that Dita mentioned earlier who singled out Toyota for running their pressures too low and he said that amplified the problem but Dita has already told us that that wasn't the case. Jacques Villain-Eurve at Salber says the problems were specific to certain teams so it must be related to their setup but he did add that Michelin had clearly brought the wrong tires although Salber was safe and there might just be some more tire degradation than usual. Williams said they didn't have any problems at this point but Mark Weber was a man who was concerned because he recalled the problems Mercedes had at Le Mans in 1999 when their cars were taking off in practice and qualifying. Weber didn't want Mercedes to start that race but as a young driver back then his voice wasn't heard and Mercedes suffered the same fate in the race itself so Mark we had a qualifying session we had a grid formed for Sunday but when you're hearing all these mixed responses from the drivers and the teams on Saturday night. Were you at all confident at this point that we still might get a race? I ultimately thought the solution would be found and it wouldn't be a tyre solution. I think it was, apparently, this time that it would have to be a circuit solution. And yeah, I thought we're probably going to go down that route. I think late Saturday was pretty clearly established that the Michelin tyres were showing signs of the same imminent failure. The tyres, as it's suffered, on most of the cars, on most of the Michelin runners. And your data was talking earlier on about the cambers. And I think it's true at that time that tyre typically didn't run very much camber on their rear wheels. And I think maybe trying to keep control of the temperatures on the inner shoulder. And that was a particular problem at Indy because you're going through turn 13, which, as Deidre said, is putting a lot of load on the outer shoulder. But you then had a 16, 17 second run at over 200 miles an hour down the following straight. So if you had an inner shoulder temperature problem, you were risking having a tyre failure at 200 miles an hour down at the end of the straight. So that was a problem of the potentially all the Michelin teams were looking at. It didn't leave you a window of margin because if you set it up with to protect the tyre down the straight, it increased the loads through turn 13. And if you reduced the loads, it turned 13, you increased the chances of a problem at the end of the straight. So we're already apparent that there was very little window for a tyre solution as such. So yeah, we were now thinking it would probably be a race, but we're even though we're hearing that the very real possibility that there wouldn't be. Yeah, and as Mark said there, Michelin's position by Saturday night was that it couldn't give its teams total assurance that the tyres could be used safely in the race unless the speed through the final corner could be reduced. By Saturday night, plenty of suggestions are being thrown around. We already know that the new tyre batch had been put forward as an option, although race director Charlie Whiting was not in favour of this. He told the teams it would be a clear breach of the regulations and then there would be disagreements over what would be a suitable penalty. In a letter he sent to Michelin on Sunday morning, he said, we believe the penalty would not be exclusion but would have to be heavy enough to ensure that no team was tempted to use qualifying tyres in the future. What else was on the table? There was a suggestion that Michelin could inform their teams of a speed limit at the final corner, although Whiting added that the teams would have to ensure their cars didn't obstruct the bridge stone runners who were at full speed. So that one was perhaps never practical. There was also talk of the Michelin runners using the pit lane on every single lap to avoid putting the tyres through the stresses of the final corner. Another idea was that the drivers could keep coming in to change the left rear tyre. As we mentioned earlier, tyre changes weren't allowed in 2005 but exceptions were allowed on safety grounds and Whiting said on Sunday morning there would be no penalty for this. However, there would be a penalty if the multiple changes the teams were making meant that a driver exceeded its tyre allocation for the weekend which almost certainly would have been the case. The final suggestion which we've already mentioned briefly and it rumbled on throughout Sunday was for a chicane to be installed between the final two corners to reduce the speed sufficiently on the banking. But from the moment that was suggested, Whiting told Michelin that is out of the question. He added to change the course in order to help some of the teams with a performance problem caused by their failure to bring suitable equipment to the race would be a breach of the rules and grossly unfair to those teams which have come to Indianapolis with the correct tyres. So, Dito, we had a lot of different ideas on the table come Saturday night. Did you fully support any of those that we mentioned there? Well, in theory, as I said, we tried to, in some, how to find a way to do a race and you said it as well, I mean, there were a few points already which were really not possible or would not have helped the problems like the Barcelona tyres. As well, a speed limit, we didn't really support that for several reasons because I mean only for the Michelin runners a speed limit, I think on one hand it would have been very difficult to police that and on the other hand as well, there was an element of a safety risk because the drivers as well after the race at one stage made a statement on that that this would have been unsafe because anyway you would have been driving on the racing line and you would have the breached on runners coming at at max speed. So, I think those weren't really serious options as well running through a pit lane. I mean, you wouldn't have had the race either. So, I think the only one with potentially could have given us the chance to have a fair race for everybody would have been putting up a chicane but there was obviously a FIA in the breached on runners wanting to have a word on that. Yeah, just a bit. Mark, what did you think from the outside? Did you like the sound of any of the ideas being put forward? Yeah, the chicane was the obvious one and even the breached on runners objections to that you could have covered. There was talk of the Michelin runners would have to have a stop go penalty in order that the breached on runners retained an advantage which was the advantage, it was only fair because breached on it brought the correct ties and Michelin hadn't so that was only fair that there should be an advantage. The argument that the chicane putting in the chicane would have negated the breached on advantage so to counter that it was suggested well okay every Michelin runner has a stop go penalty and it was there was a solution there but there wasn't a will there from the govern body. Yeah, and a Sunday morning carried on as chicane was the talk of the paddock. Bernie Eccleston got all of the teams except Ferrari to agree to the chicane and then it was his job to take that proposal to Ferrari and get them to agree to it but Ferrari's position which we covered in detail in our Ferrari 2005 episode back in series one was that it was nothing to do with them and it was up to the FIA to decide. Michelin then made a public plea for a chicane to be put in saying it could not guarantee the safety of the drivers without it. Less than an hour before the race teams were still pushing for a chicane. Sam Michael of Williams said it's down to Ferrari and he said no other teams would head to the grid when the pit lane opened half an hour before the start if there was not a chicane. Minardi Boss Paul Stoddart whose Minot team were on Bridgestone tyres showed solidarity with the Michelin teams as we mentioned earlier and at this point so did Jordan. Stoddart said to ITV before the race this is the time for Formula One to come together as a sport and leave politics behind. We want to see a race here not a political disaster. For that to be able to happen there needs to be a chicane. On the McLaren pit wall Martin Whitmarsh told ITV we accept we should be penalised we accept we should be we should put Ferrari on the front row with Jordan and Minardi after them but we're not going out without a chicane on that corner and I don't believe one can be built in 20 minutes so unless something dramatic happens there won't be a race. Interestingly he adds this is Formula One things get taken to the wire and we'll see what happens in the next half an hour. Mark this was a recurring theme in the coverage just ahead of the race at the time. Do you think that attitude of this is F1 we always push it to the last second meant that some people assumed this would work itself out right at the final moment? Well there was definitely that that undercurrent was definitely there as I said before there was this was being played out against a political backdrop a much bigger political picture than than just the one that was triggered by the tire issue. So yes there was a certain amount of belief that there was some posturing going on but that didn't disguise the fact that there was a very very real problem that needed a solution and you know the as the the clock tick down it became ever more apparent that that solution wasn't going to be agreed to. And just before Mark Weber got into his car in the garage he said we've tires it's okay if we get a warning and the chance to feel something happening but when they just go quickly it's very dangerous for the driver it's the worst thing that can fail along with brakes. So data in our timeline of the weekend we're just a few minutes away now from the pit lane opening. What do you remember was going on at this time and by this point did you think there was any chance of us getting a race? The thoughts were still still the same in all of you we couldn't see a progress how the race could could potentially happen. So by the time we then went out it was clear for us at least that we would be pulling in after the the the formation lab. Yeah the pit lane opens we've half an hour to go before the start and interestingly just as McLaren reserved driver Pedro De La Rosa is on TV. saying that nine teams have agreed not to go out, the yellow Jordans flash through the back of the shot, and a visibly surprised Pedro says, "Okay, eight teams then, and we'll come back to the Jordan and Minardi story in a moment." 20 minutes before the start, the Michelin teams finally leave the garages and head to the grid, and there's loud cheers from the fans in the grandstands. However, Christian Horner said at this point, "Mission Lim will not allow us to race this tire, so unless something changes, we will not race. We will go to the grid, but we will come in on the formation lap." Bernie Ecclisterna tells Martin Brando on the grid, "It's been decided not to put a chicane there, so that's it. You can't tell people to do something when the tire company has said you can't race on those tires." The drama on the grid continued, though, and not all of it was captured on TV, but one man who caught one of the more interesting exchanges on the grid was McLaren Mechanic and friend of the show Mark Priestley, who overheard Kimmy Reikonen and Ron Dennis having a heated disagreement. Let's quickly find out what Mark heard on the grid. It's been a really interesting weekend, but a really crazy and strange weekend from our perspective, because all the way through we didn't really know what was going to happen. Some of the other teams seemed to have a little bit more information than we did, and whether that was just a perception of ours, I don't know, but even to the point where we got to race day on Sunday, Sunday morning, we prepared the cars as if they were going to race, whereas other teams seemed to be a little bit more hesitant or seem to be a little bit more confident that things were going to be very abnormal by the time the afternoon came around. But for us at McLaren, Ron Dennis had constantly said, "Let's get things going as normal. We're doing everything we can behind the scenes to make this race happen." So that's what we did as mechanics. We prepared everything. We took the car to the grid. One of my roles during that period was I was part of the front end crew on Kimmy's car. And one of my roles was to get Kimmy strapped into the car to prepare his belts, make sure everything was right for when he got back in after his toilet break. And I remember getting to that point. Still, 100% convinced that we were about to go and do the US Grand Prix. I got Kimmy into the car, removed the steering wheel, I helped him in, held his belts apart while he got in. He climbed in as normal, didn't really say much, which was also fairly normal for Kimmy. And I remember strapping him in at that point, I leaned right over into the cockpit to do up his belts. And at that point, I remember this presence over my right shoulder. And very quickly, I realised that somebody was standing very close to me, much more close than normal. And it was Ron Dennis. So the team boss, that puts me under a little bit of suspicion and pressure because when the team boss is standing over his shoulder doing anything, it makes you slightly nervous. But Ron came in and I overheard what was a very strange conversation, one I'll never forget, because Ron came along and he said to Kimmy, he knelt down next to the car, he lent him, he said to Kimmy, Kimmy, at the end of this formation lap, we're going to ask you to pull into the pit lane and retire the car. And I thought, wow, okay, that's the first I've heard that we may not actually be racing here. Kimmy, though, who I was, you know, sent a meter away from his face, still doing his belts up. And he said, no, this is ridiculous. We're here to race. So let's just fucking race. And I remember chuckling away to myself at that point. And Ron Dennis then, because nobody says that to Ron. So Ron Dennis turned around and said, "Kimmy, I'm sorry, but everybody else, all of your main competitors are going to do the same. We need you to pull in. There's a lot of work gone into this behind the scenes. I'm afraid this is the result you need to pull into the pit lane at the end of the formation lap. And I remember Kimmy just sitting there shaking his head. And I'm sitting there very uncomfortable thinking, what the hell is going on here?" Kimmy just shaking his head, didn't say anything. Ron Dennis then said, "Kimmy, I'm speaking now as your boss. This is an order you will pull in at the end of the formation lap." And I remember just Kimmy still shaking his head going, "This is a fucking joke." And that was it. He pulled his visor down. I carried on doing his belts up and Ron stormed off in the biggest rage I have ever seen. I strapped Kimmy in, I put the wheel onto his car, I sent him off having not really said anything more to him because I didn't know what to say. And still at that point, I had no idea what Kimmy was going to do. He went off for the formation lap along with everybody else. I made my way back to the garage in the pit lane. And still, at the point where the lead cars began to filter into the pit lane as predicted, all of the Michelin runners, of course. I still had no idea if Kimmy was just going to ignore the instructions and go on and do the race by himself. I certainly would not have put it past him. Anyway, as it turned out, he did filter into the pit lane. He Julie came up along to the garage. I called him in. At that point, we'd pull him up outside the garage and wheeled the car back. And the radio in my ear was going crazy because Dave Ryan, the team manager, was saying, "Right, guys, I want you to keep the drivers inside the car because still at this point, there's a chance that there's talks going on. We may still enter the race." And I had to come back on the radio and say, "Dave, I'm afraid Kimmy's already gone." Before the car had even really ground to a halt, his belts were undone. The wheel was off. And he was off into the garage. I didn't see him again. So it was a hilarious moment in some ways. It was a crazy day for us because I've never experienced anything like it. We were packing the garage up during the race. This crazy race of just six bridge stone runners, of course. And as I say, Kimmy was long gone and almost certainly on a flight out of there before we'd even finished packing up the garage. So, an afternoon, I'll never forget. All the cars take off for the formation lap and David Coolfard's radio is played over the TV broadcast. And he says, "If it comes down to my choice, I want to race." But Deter, I assume that by the time the formation lap begins, there's no room for negotiation. And it's all been decided by this point. That's true. And this was obviously for us the point of maximum excitement. We were on the pole position. And for the first time for Toyota, as you mentioned earlier on, we had to clear an instruction to pull in after the formation lap. But you know how it is. You know everybody wants to race. We knew we would respect that call and pull in. But you don't know if you're the car on the pole position. Is it if everybody else is going to follow you? So, there was a little bit of suspense for us. But at the end of the day, we also saw that people were effectively respecting that agreement. And I think at the end of the day, it was a shame obviously for the race not happening in particular for the spectators really. Nightmare. But the only safe thing we could have potentially done. Yeah, exactly. Mark, did you understand that there could have been any hope of us still getting a race by this point? No, it was apparent that there was no chance it was already once there was no chicane there. It was obvious that there wasn't going to be a race. And as Deeta said, the only way the might of being a race was if anyone broke ranks. But I didn't think that was very likely. It was a similar situation though, but I understand why Deeta was concerned because it was a similar situation to the Japanese Grand Prix in 1976 with Nikki Lauren. All the drivers had agreed that they would just do a formation lap and then come in at the end of lap one. And only four drivers did so, Lauder being one of them. And the rest just carried on. So is that competitive? When the moment arrives, sometimes the competitive adrenaline over rules, any previous agreements, but other than that happening now, there was no chance of a race with the Michelin runners. We all know what happens next. All 14 Michelin cars pull into the pit lane, leaving the Ferrari's Jordans and Minardi's to contest a six car race. Schumacher and Barrakello did have a bit of a battle in the Ferrari's, helped by Schumacher's first stop being long, while his left rear tire was checked out. He then puts in a charge before his second stop and exits the pits alongside Barrakello who had to take to the grass at the first corner. After that, Nervy moment Ferrari called the race off and Schumacher takes the team's only win of the year. Deeta, what were you doing while the race was going on? Did you, did you watch any of it or did you have better things to do with your time? Honestly, I didn't follow the race too much because we started feeling as well the atmosphere on the grandstands, the fans were rightly so very upset. And basically we were starting to do our things and packing up. We won't get into Ferrari's weekend too much here because as I mentioned earlier we've covered that side of things with a decent chunk of a previous episode. But while we have Deeta here and before we let him go, let's look at the role Ferrari had in the discussions about finding a solution. In that previous episode we looked at Ross Braun's comments from his book where he said Ferrari stood back that weekend and let it happen. He said it was Max Mosley fighting back against the suggestion of a chicane but Ferrari didn't encourage a solution that would have been to add disadvantage. At the time Ferrari team Bosch Jean-Tot said Ferrari would not have agreed to a chicane but he was never asked about it during the weekend anyway. He added that it would have been ridiculous to put one in half an hour before the race with no chance to try it out and also that there was no reason for Ferrari to compromise as they would have set their cars up differently if they knew they were racing on a layout. He added that Ferrari wouldn't have competed if this had become a non-championship race but he would have been happy for the Michelin teams to keep changing tyres to use the pit lane every lap or just to go slowly through the final corner. Deeta, what do you recall of Ferrari's involvement that weekend? Did they stay on the outside as Braun and Tott suggested or did you find it? I think they were more actively involved. I'm afraid that's much more unfortunately the question for a team principle, because I was involved in the technical discussion exclusively with Michelin. So from what I remember at the time, I was never involved in a discussion where actually Ferrari participated. Everything within Michelin teams and I think then the other discussion that you described, probably were held exclusively even with the team principles. Okay and then just lastly, so I'm conscious that we don't take up too much of your time, but we've enjoyed having you here. With the suggestion like the chicane, one of the FIA arguments was that they couldn't change the circuit at the last minute and then risk having an accident on a layout that wasn't properly homologated. Did the Michelin teams understand that that made that impossible? Do you think there was still a way it could have been done? No, I think there was some understanding for that situation because effectively the argument that came up was that we would have run on a non homologated circuit and I think with the safety standards that we put up at this stage that wasn't really an alternative because you compensate a safety risk by putting up another. So that wouldn't have been the right option at the end of the day, I think. And just lastly then, before we let you go, when you look back on this, what are your final thoughts about the whole unfortunate incident? Was there any way out of this or was it just something that the F1 had no choice but to have the outcome that we had in the end of the 6-car race? I think if we take the complete picture, probably it couldn't have been dealt with in another way. Because there were some investigations afterwards obviously and you know there was hearing the World Council and so on and the different analysis had been done and one part of it as well. A question basically to all the teams whether we made a mistake in selecting the tyres for the Indianapolis race and even with the analysis post-race, we couldn't come to the conclusion that in the process there was a mistake and we should have done differently and should have chosen another tyre. These were just the circumstances at this particular track with a banking which you couldn't really find anywhere else in exactly the same way as well with a long straight line after the corner that Mark already mentioned earlier on. So we simply couldn't get in a reasonable condition to simulate what would wait for us in the Indianapolis or I think yes it is a shame and obviously nobody wanted it to happen that way but at the end they probably the only possible outcome. Well it was a really unfortunate weekend for F1 but thank you so much Dita for finding the time to revisit it with us and tell us some of the stories that were going on on the inside. It's been a fascinating conversation. Very welcome. It's my pleasure. Brilliant stuff there from Dita Gaston. We're very appreciative here at Bring Back V10s that he was able to come along and give us some an inside look at what was going on through a difficult weekend and I must say that I've spoken to someone else quite senior at Toyota recently and they were a bit more open to say about just how little fuel was in Trulley's car. One of the rumors I'd heard was they weren't even sure he'd make it round to the end of the formation lack to get into the pit lane but Mark you had the unfortunate task of still having to cover this race and report on it with just six cars pounding round. What did you make of it while it was going on and how did you feel thinking this is presumably thinking this is ridiculous. I've somehow got my normal race report amongst all this. Well it was quite a far sigle race so I didn't worry too much about it. It wasn't it was very difficult it cover six cars to understand what was happening so there wasn't a lot of deep analysis required of the race itself so the report ended up being set in the backdrop of just how it had come to this and the wider issues but in terms of the race yeah for our try to make it a little bit more exciting by delaying Michael at the first stop under the pretense of checking that these tyres were okay which delayed them by seven seconds or so which meant that he had a fight his way back ahead of Rubens and Rubens was all for trying to take lead off from as Michael rejoined and they almost touched and at that point it was briefly looking like Tiago Monteiro was going to win the race but yeah that was about as much excitement as it was in the race itself they did them them in the story of course was the story around the race rather than the race itself. Yeah I think Monteiro winning could have been about the only thing to make this weekend and the race more ridiculous now we have briefly mentioned Max Mosley a couple of times at this point but of course he was one of the key men involved while all of this was going on even if he wasn't actually at the race. Mosley supported whiteing stance or not having the chicane and Max says that he flat out refused to consider it partly for sporting fairness to the teams that had the correct tyres but also because a last minute change like this in Max's words would leave the FIA exposed if they were an accident because the governing body wouldn't have followed its own safety procedures. Max understands that work did start on a chicane and this was being done by the circuit organizers under the instruction of Bernie Echelston but when Charlie Whiteing found out about that he got it stopped immediately. Mark some teams made references to some of the hastily put together chicanes we saw in 1994 but none of those were of course concocted on race morning was it ultimately the right call by the FIA that they could never sanction as she came being added this soon just before the race. I don't believe it was I believe that was just Max Pilemix to justify the movie was intent on playing in the bigger game using this unfortunate miscalculation with the tyres to meet his political agenda and his fight with the GPWC which was the manufacturer alliance and the teams he was trying to push through the engine freeze and reduce the power of the manufacturers and the manufacturers had banded together and were threatened to set up on their own taking the customer teams with them. There were only three teams not on side with that and by coincidence and it really was coincidence they were the three bridged on teams Ferrari Jordan and Menardi that was the backdrop. The Michelin problems are delivered to Max and a resistible opportunity to not only punish the renegade teams but to show them that he was absolutely willing to stage grompries with just three teams thereby destroying the GPWC team's confidence that without them if one couldn't exist. Max was showing them that it could it was irresistible that opportunity I believe to him and he should have resisted because of the fans so that was the political backdrop as for the actual problem of hosting a race the worst solutions there and I was told at the time by somebody who would know that the tweak the insurance for an emergency change of circle layout would have been a three-minute phone call. Anything else was just self-imposed restrictions you're just pretending you couldn't do it to stand behind for obfuscation whether there was a right or a wrong side and the FIA GPWC fight isn't relevant the point is it was indefensible to make the fans who traveled there in good faith who paid a watch the show be the victims in this for them F1 is one entity they'd paid this entity money made the weekend plans around it if that entity couldn't get itself into shape enough to stage the promise of N with a full grid of teams and drivers then shame on that entity that there was only one party here preventing a solution and it wasn't the teams for that party to them blame the teams was pure power play in politics and the bigger picture that flashpoint the core technical issue that caused the problem was solvable and it was willfully prevented. Let's go back to the other two teams who race that day of course Jordan and Minardi because even by Sunday morning they were both on the same side as the Michelin runners so it is effectively a group of nine against the FIA in the run-up to the race but I mentioned earlier that moment where the Jordans leave their garage when the pit lane opened and it came as a surprise well to everyone watching and certainly to Paul Pedro de la Rosa who was on TV at the time but nobody was more surprised the Minardi boss Paul stood up stood up declared on live TV before the race that nine of the ten teams will only go out of the pit lane if there's a chicane on TV again during the race he was asked what happened and he said the reason my cars are out there is simple it's because one of those teams decided not to honour their commitment and it's the only team we're racing in the championship while the Jordan cars continue to circulate we have no choice. Jordan sporting director Adrian Burgess said that the decision came from his boss for the cars to race and that boss at the time of course was Colin Colors. Colors told ITV the situation is not pleasant but we are not responsible for Michelin and the other teams they are not stopping races when we have tyre problems that's racing. Stoddart released a statement after the race that was nearly 3,000 words long and to be honest we could have built a whole episode around that because it had so much detail about what was happening and when but he also mentioned there that he checked with Colors on the grid if Jordan would be racing and was told in no uncertain terms that they would be and Bridgestone then also said that they wanted Minardi to race. And still I added, I made it clear to Bernie Eccleston and several team principles that if the Jordan's either went off or retired, I would withdraw the Minardi cars from the race. Mark, was there any real reason for Jordan to stand by the Michelin teams here and effectively let a podium finish, even in a fascicle race, go begging? Well, in a bigger picture, Jordan wasn't against the aims of the GPWC in an principle agreed to join the Michelin teams in making a stand to have a solution for the race. But when it came down to it, when it clear there was no solution in terms of a chicane or whatever, and with points and money at stake and no technical reason not to take part, as it was on Bridgestons, it was easy for Bernie who was absolutely desperately trying to get some sort of race on to convince Colin Coloss to start. So, support of in principle in threatening not the race, but not when it came down to it, no. And Jordan's participation, as you say, ensured the Bridgestons, Shod Minardi's too, as they were fighting each other in a Constructors' Championship not to be lost. And a man who took that podium finish was of course Tiago Montero, and while Schumacher and Barrakello looked a little uncomfortable upon a podium, Montero wanted to make the most of the biggest moment of his F1 career. So let's quickly hear his side of the story. We never really, we never sided with the Missions because actually we were trying to make them come to reason and try to make them understand that we had many issues before with our own tires in many different tracks. There were some tracks where we were struggling to do a single stints, you know. The only thing is that maybe it was not as dangerous because there was no crashes, but because we always stopped before. And also because we always took a safer approach than the Missions at that time. So we had our shares of issues during previous races, but we didn't complain or we didn't boycott anything. So that's why we're trying to make them understand. Guys, you brought the tires to extreme here. There were ways for them to be more careful, less aggressive on them, but they didn't want to do it. So we could not accept that we struggled before and we didn't complain about it. And now that they had issues, they wanted to boycott. So we never agreed with their position. We tried to come to a compromise, but all the compromise they wanted was always to be their advantage. So they didn't work out. So we were always against their proposals and therefore there was no unanimity, therefore they decided to boycott the race. But we only realized they were boycotting the race at the start. Until then, even until a few minutes before, maybe half an hour, 45 minutes before the race, there was a last meeting between the team principals. And it was still not clear that they were going to do that. So it was a surprise, a bit of a shock when we realized they were all pulling in the pits. What it was annoying to us was that we knew there were options. I mean, one of them was sacrificing, sacrificing performance, like lifting off in that corner, not going over a certain speed in that corner. Yeah, it would lose performance, but yeah, we had also the same problems and we lost performance in other tracks. So we knew there was way to make it happen. They were just trying to make it through their points. And that's what we didn't accept and we didn't like it at the time. But of course, security and safety comes first. And at the end of the day, if that's the only way they had to make it safe for everybody, fair enough. But still, it was not our responsibility. So we did our thing. I actually have that radio transmit when my engineer tells me, okay, nobody knows what's going to happen. So just stay on your spot and your position and we'll see. And then when he tells me, okay, this one is pulling in. Montoya is pulling in. Cool, that's what I mean. Wow, everybody was pulling in and you just told me, you stay on your position. Don't gain positions on the grid. Just stay on your spots and taking from there. You know, a lot of things can happen. There are points on the table. That's what that's what we realized and we knew. So just focus and do your best you can. And then you know, when you go to the driver's room just before the podium, I got a huge hug from Michael and Rubens and you know, like, well, you know, this is quite a crazy race, you know, but well done, you know, at least you're here and you did well. It's a good force for the championship. So for them, it was good points, you know. So they were happy, maybe not as happy as a regular race, maybe, but they were like celebrating. And suddenly, I always remember David Warren, FOM, I think from the FOM manager at the time comes into the room and says, guys, take it down now. It is a very sensitive situation. Let's go to the podium obviously, but please no celebrations and take it easy. Go out blood. And I'm like, oh shit, okay, well, you know, it was my first time there in the podium, you know, exactly what to do. And in the end, they went to the podium with a long face. I went a bit serious as well. But then again, once I was there, I see all my mechanics down there, shouting and celebrating. I'm like, you know, what the hell, I mean, we didn't steal anything from anybody. We're here because we deserve to be here because the others pulled out, but that's not our problem. So I started celebrating like it was like it was, like it was not, you know, it was a good, my last podium. I realized, man, I'm on a Formula One podium with Rubens and Michael. And I have 80 people down there cry. I mean, what the hell. So, yeah, I did celebrate and I enjoyed my time. Mostly's theory on everything else that went on that day, including all the team meetings that he says in his book, were for the benefit of the cameras, was that the seven Michelin teams were utterly convinced the FIA would buckle when it came to crunch time. He said of Eccles Denenbriatory, looking back, I think Bernie and Flavio never believed for one moment that we would allow the race to go ahead with only six cars. They were convinced that faced with seven teams who were prepared to stick together, we would have no alternative but to back down. Perhaps if I'd been there, I could have made them understand why that was never going to happen. All they could do was refuse to race or compete in a locally organised non-championship event. I decided the only course for the FIA was to ignore the threats and simply follow the start procedure on schedule. The teams could then do as they pleased. Let's move on to the fallout then, which data hinted at briefly when he was still with us and we'll do it as quickly as we can because in the weeks that followed, we would just had multiple press statements, leaked letters, personally held Q&A's threats and general bickering in public. Going back and reading through all of this, normally I really enjoyed a research that can't be bring back V10s, but that phase of this episode I found quite tedious, I must say. I don't miss that part of Formula One. The key facts were that the seven Michelin teams were summoned by the FIA on five counts and were later found guilty of two of them. They were found guilty of failing to ensure they were in possession of suitable tyres for the race, but with strong mitigating circumstances, they were also found guilty of wrongfully refusing to allow their cars to start a race when they had the right to use the pit lane on each lap. They were found not guilty of refusing to race subject to a speed restriction because there was never a detailed plan for how this could work. Not guilty of combining to make a demonstration for the reason that they had hoped to race until the last minute, and for the same reason they were found not guilty of failing to inform the stewards of their intention not to start. Mostly delayed any penalty being handed out, though, saying that the intention of the verdict was to indirectly put pressure on Michelin to secure compensation for the guys in the states. He added that if the compensation package was not sorted out by September, then severe penalties would be imposed. But Mark, by this point, Michelin had already outlined their plans to offer refunds to ticket holders and then to provide 20,000 free tickets for the 2006 race. Was this all a bit unnecessary from Max? Yeah, the whole thing was unnecessary. It was pure power play. The team was one guilty of anything. The FIA was called Judge in Executioner and it was pure power play. So, no, there was nothing justified about any of it. Six of the teams immediately stated their intention to appeal the verdict. We've read, but we initially not wanting to take the matter any further. I think Dietrich Matyship said there's not going to be any real penalty here, so why keep it going. But it wasn't long after this that they did join the appeal and then Rebel team boss Christian Horner joined Ron Dennis in presenting a dossier of fresh evidence to the FIA Senate on July the 14th, which is roughly a month after the race. The Senate agreed that the teams were contractually bound to follow the instructions of their tire supplier, meaning that for the same reason the FIA couldn't risk legal action by changing the circuit layout. The teams couldn't take part in the race with Michelin instructing them to the contrary. The Senate recommended that the World Motorsport Council overturn the guilty verdicts, which it duly did a week later. Perhaps the most remarkable moment in all of this to me anyway was that it led to flanking. Naviobriatory praising Ron Dennis, which didn't happen very often. Flavio said, "I want to say Ron did a great job for everyone because he negotiated with Max, with the teams, and the result was the team for not guilty. Now the FIU understands it was a Michelin issue, not at all the teams." Ron saw the funny side of that, saying, "I think being the catalyst and ambassador is a new experience for me, and he said the outcome was in the interests of Formula One, because nobody came out of Indianapolis with anything positive, and perpetuating the negatives was clearly not constructive to Formula One." That's a wrong quote if ever I heard one. Mostly wrote in his book, "The New Evidence Presented by the teams showed that in his words, technically they had not committed an offence under our rules, despite their abortive rebellion." He also said he learned later on that the teams had told their drivers, "The site of 14 cars peeling into the pits at the end of the formation lap would make the FIA buckle, delay the start and agree to put the chicane in." Mark just finally, Max compares this whole saga to the FISA Folka War of the early 1980s. Do you think it ranks up or perhaps I should say down there with something of that magnitude? I think it was much worse, more cynical. In Max's own language of team standing down and rebellion and calling bluff, it tells you that his whole agenda wasn't on solving the immediate problem. It was in the context of the bigger political battle. The political battle in the FISA Folka War was on the 80s, that was much the same, but in that instance the fans weren't made the victims of convenience. It was all happening behind closed doors. In this case, the fans were almost casually waived away as irrelevant, but they are the very reasons the sport exists. Ultimately, the only reason there even exists is a governing body. Without the fans there's no sport. Without the sport, there's nothing for the governing body to be in charge of. For me, it was where it was. Let's just finally pick up on that thing he said about the team's believing that when they peeled into the pits, the FIA would buckle. Do you think that was a worthwhile gamble from the teams or did they maybe underestimate their enemy at this point? I don't think the teams were doing anything other than what they could do. They'd been put into a corner by the tire situation and by the FIA's absolute refusal to have a solution. They couldn't race when the tire company had told them that the tires weren't safe. I don't think the teams were approaching it as a political battle. I think only Max was doing that. Jim Furnace to Max. He made him think that he'd stayed on for too long as FIA president. That's enough politics for one day. There you have it. Since Bringback V10s launched, you've been asking for Indianapolis 2005 and we hope it was worth the wait. Series 2 isn't quite over though. Once again, we'll be finishing off by answering your questions about anything and everything to do with F1 from 1989 to 2005. Once again, we've received so many questions from you either through social media using the hashtag #bringbackv10s or those of you who are very kindly left as a 5-star podcast review that we're going to have to split our finale into two episodes. I can't sound too disappointed about that and Mark will of course be back with us for one of those along with Gary Anderson as they did last series and we'll do our best across the two episodes to get through as many of your questions as we can. We have set a date for Series 3, don't worry, you won't have to wait too long this time, but we'll reveal that at the end of Series 2. Once we've covered as many weird and wonderful topics as we can over the next two weeks, we'll show them by you.