Apologies for not posting anything on the blog for a couple of days. I went to watch Formula 1 practice and qualification runs on Saturday (06/18/2005). After I got back, I had too many things that required my attention and I couldn’t find time to blog.

The whole thing was a lot of fun. I got to see some of the best racing cars on the planet. It was very exciting to witness professionalism of the drivers when they took the same turns with equal precision from one lap to the next. The only downside was that the cars were too loud. Louder than I was expecting.

Watching practice and qualification runs is fun of course, but not as fun as watching the real race. The drivers didn’t really try to fight with each other and concentrated on getting their cars tuned in for the track and getting the best time during qualifications run.

Unfortunately, this year US Grand Prix race was practically a disaster. Seven out of ten teams refused to race due to the defective tires and only six cars raced. Apparently, Michelin tires that came with the latest shipment can deflate at a certain turn. It’s the fastest turn and I understand that with all the forces acting on the car taking it at the high speed the tires become unsafe. Michelin engineers offered a solution of modifying the track slightly so that the cars would have to slow down more on the turn, but FIA officials refused. As the result, Ferrari owned the track with their cars being the fastest in the race. This was the record lowest number of the cars in the race in the history of Formula 1. I hope that this event will not push away Formula 1 fans in the US and around the world, but I doubt there will be as many people following the race next year as there were this year.

If anybody's interested let me know and I will publish pictures from the event. I might actually publish some later when I find enough time to sort through all of them and pick good ones.