FIA's Reaction
The following day, the FIA published a justification of its refusal to permit a change in tyres or the installation of a chicane. The FIA also summoned the seven Michelin-shod teams before the World Motorsport Council at their headquarters in France, for a hearing on June 29, to explain their failure to participate, by which they had presumably violated the terms of the Concorde Agreement. It later published copies of the letters sent to each team "in the interests of transparency". They were charged with violating article 151c of the International Sporting Code, which refers to acts prejudicial to the interests of competition or motorsport generally. Specifically, it was charged that they had:
- Failed to ensure availability of suitable tyres for the race.
- Wrongfully refused to allow cars to start the race
- Wrongfully refused to allow cars to race subject to speed restrictions at one corner, which was safe for such tyres available.
- Combined with other teams to make a demonstration damaging to the image of Formula 1 by pulling into the pits immediately before the start of the race.
- Failed to notify the stewards of intention not to race.
On June 22 the FIA produced a press release from Max Mosley, in the form of a question-and-answer session, in an effort to clarify the FIA's stand on the controversy. In it Mosley drew an analogy to a hypothetical situation where the engines from one manufacturer had oil starvation problems due to high lateral loading in one corner, and pointed out that those cars would simply have been forced to run slower as a result. He reiterated that the reason for not installing the chicane was purely that it had never been tested and was thereby deemed unsafe. He pointed out that the alternatives that the FIA suggested were feasible, and wondered why the teams did not use the pitlane as an alternative, especially when, with only six Bridgestone cars, the Michelin teams could still compete for the points scoring seventh and eighth places.
On June 29 the FIA World Motorsport Council found the teams guilty on the first two counts, that is, of not being in possession of suitable tyres for the event, but with strong mitigating circumstances, and that of wrongfully refusing to allow their cars to start the race. The teams were found not guilty of the other three counts. The punishment, however, was not decided, and was not to have been announced until September 14.
On July 22, the FIA World Motorsport Council voted to overturn its previous decision, and exonerated the Michelin teams of all charges. The decision was due to "evidence previously submitted to the FIA Senate", rumoured to be that the Michelin teams could have faced criminal charges under Indiana state law for knowingly putting others at risk if they had raced (even if no accident actually occurred).
Read more about this topic: 2005 United States Grand Prix, Aftermath
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