Having already warned that should the FIA pursue the idea of switching to a control tyre (which it clearly will) it will leave F1, Michelin has now intimated, once again, that it intends to 'shed' a couple of teams ahead of the 2006 season.

"It will be all part of what we have already announced," Nick Shorrock, director of the French company's Formula One activities, told Reuters, "which is our desire to reconfigure the way we deal with partners and the number of partners that we have.

"So certainly, yes, we will be ending up with a reduction of partners for the 2006 season," he added, revealing that an announcement could be made this weekend at Spa. "In the next week we will certainly be clarifying the situation," he said.

Michelin returned to Formula One in 2001, after an absence of seventeen years. It took the French company just four races to make it to the top step of the podium (San Marino), however, it took until this season to win the title. Along the way there have been a number of high-profile tyre failures, not to mention the Indianapolis debacle, which will see the French outfit having to reimburse race fans who attended the June event.

In its first season back in F1, Michelin supplied 5 teams - Benetton, Prost, Minardi, WilliamsF1 and Jaguar - out of 11, however, in the wake of the failure of Prost and Arrows, and the entry of Toyota, the French company now supplies 7 teams out of 10.