Bum tires tip of the Formula One scandal

I suspect that Bernie Ecclestone and his colleagues are happy that the travails of Edward Snowden and Mohammed Morsi remain front-page news. For, were it not our fascination with the implosion of democracy on one continent and its resurrection on another, methinks that the spontaneous explosion of four tires in a front-line Formula One race and the fingerpointing, butt-covering carping that followed would have been top-of-the-fold TMZ fodder. As it is, the motorsport media is all aTwitter with the spectacle of four of F1’s front-runners — former champion and, until then, race leader Lewis Hamilton, no less — suffering catastrophic, high-speed blowouts around Britain’s historic Silverstone racetrack.

Beyond the immediate accusations — Pirelli blames the teams for installing the tires on the wrong wheels and the drivers for schmucking Silverstone’s high curbs too hard while, well, everyone else blames Pirelli — the subject of Formula One’s basic tire design bears a little more scrutiny.

Seemingly lost in all these recriminations is that Pirelli deliberately engineers its Formula One tires to be bad. Yes, the tires in what is supposed to be the pinnacle of motor racing are designed for poorer durability, literally acting like an equalizer of both racecar performance and driver ability.

Even more of a scandal is that it’s not Pirelli’s fault. It’s a sad, sad state of affairs. Formula One cars are becoming a joke. They were once the pinnacle of motor racing and, hence, the automotive world. They were the fastest, most advanced and technically proficient that the automotive world’s best engineering minds could create. Now, they’re mere shadows of their once incredible selves, restricted by onerous regulations and inferior equipment. Indeed, I suspect that, without the incredible aerodynamics — the one area of remaining technical prowess — Formula One cars would not be the fastest on the planet.

But the real story is that Formula One chiefs are sacrificing everything — engineering advancements, the creation of sports legends and the fealty that legions espouse for the sport’s legendary teams — at the altar of television.

They’re willing to do anything — even engineering deliberately crappy tires — just so we can have a photo finish. All for Nielsen ratings and advertising dollars.