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Michelin should compensate fans: F1 boss
The head of Formula One's governing body also suggested that free tickets should be offered for next year's event.
French tyre company Michelin should compensate US Grand Prix fans for Sunday's six-car race at Indianapolis, the head of Formula One's governing body suggested on Wednesday.
International Automobile Federation (FIA) president Max Mosley also said free tickets should be offered for next year's event.
"My personal view...is that Michelin should offer to compensate the fans on a fair basis and ask the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to coordinate this," he said in a response to written questions.
"Then (promoter) Tony George and Bernie Ecclestone should jointly announce that the U.S. Grand Prix will take place at Indianapolis in 2006 and that anyone who had a ticket this year would be entitled to the same ticket free of charge next year."
Some 120,000 fans turned up for a fiasco on Sunday with the seven Michelin teams, Renault, McLaren, Williams, Toyota, BAR, Red Bull and Sauber, withdrawing because of safety fears about their tyres.
Champions Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi, all using tyres provided by Bridgestone, went ahead with seven times world champion Michael Schumacher taking a hollow victory as irate fans threw bottles and cans on the track.
The seven teams have been summoned before the FIA's World Motor Sport Council in Paris next Wednesday and could face sanctions.
"We will listen carefully to what the teams have to say," said Mosley. "There are two sides to every story and the seven teams must have a full opportunity to tell theirs.
"The atmosphere will be calm and polite. The World Motor Sport Council members come from all over the world and will undoubtedly take a decision that is fair and balanced."
Mosley has made it clear that he also holds the teams responsible for what happened.
He compared the situation to a downhill ski race in which half the competitors turned up with short slalom skis and then asked organisers to change the course.
"They would be told to ski down more slowly," he said. "To make competitors with the correct skis run a completely different course to suit those with the wrong skis would be contrary to basic sporting fairness."
Changing analogy, Mosley said agreeing to insert a temporary chicane would have been like asking athletes to run a 100 metres sprint barefoot because some had forgotten their shoes.
"We cannot break our own rules just because some of the teams want us to," he said.
Mosley said it would have been perfectly possible to ask drivers to run at reduced speeds through the offending banked final corner where Toyota's Ralf Schumacher crashed in practice.
He suggested that they could also have used the pit lane on each lap.
Mosley dismissed a suggestion that the tyre problems were a result of new rules forcing drivers to use the same set for qualifying and the race.
"The tyre companies have no difficulty making tyres last. The difficult bit is making a fast tyre last," he said.
